Crime show fans think there are 2 1/2 times as many murders happening than there really are, and there are also concerns that voters are pushing for overspending on prisons to protect people from violent crime that doesn't actually exist.
Gee, I wonder if there are any other things where voters overestimating a type of crime might cause a negative, distorted legislation.
Why take this recent pol which found that 20% of voters think Mass Shootings are the most common cause of gun deaths in the US.
Horrific as they are, mass shootings represent a tiny fraction of gun deaths in America. They account for a few hundred deaths every year, as compared to an average of roughly 19,000 gun suicide deaths. There were 23,854 suicides by firearm in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And even with a murder rate well above other developed nations, gun homicides, which account for roughly 12,000 deaths per year in the U.S, are a distant second compared to suicides.
And no the Cracked article actually takes a mild anti-gun swipe where two paragraphs before the quoted section they say
TV has no shortage of violent robberies, vicious murders, and brutal rapes. It's a madhouse out there. We should teach our dogs to use guns. We should teach our guns to use guns.
So.
