Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Minneapolis TV Station's Reporters Puzzled by More Guns, Less Crime in the Gopher State

Minneapolis TV Station's Reporters Puzzled by More Guns, Less Crime in the Gopher State:
"On Thursday, Minneapolis station WCCO reported on guns and crime in Minnesota. Anchor Frank Vascarello's introduction: "More people are carrying guns than ever before, but the crime rate remains low." 
Imagine that.
Reporter Pat Kessler also treated more guns and less crime as paradoxical.
Reporting on crime and guns has been infested with the "Fox Butterfield effect." It is named after a New York Times reporter, who in November 2004 was surprised that:
The number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell.
Later, a puzzled Butterfield referred to "the paradox of a falling crime rate but a rising prison population." 
Butterfield never considered the idea that fewer bad guys on the streets might lead to less crime.
The Butterfield effect as it applies to guns is the idea journalists are similarly reluctant to accept...
Partial transcript..."
Read on!!

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