Chris Sparks was on his way home to walk his dog, a husky-mix named Dawson. On that drive, witnesses said Sparks exchanged words with another driver. Sparks’ red Honda Accord pulled alongside a silver Impala. The driver fired two shots into Sparks’ driver’s side door, then drove away, according to police.
The first hit him in the hand. The second went through his chest, killing him. Sparks was 36. His killer has never been identified.
Sparks was one of 77 people either injured or killed during road rage shootings in Tennessee between 2016 and 2021. Tennessee ranked second nationally in road rage shootings per 100,000 people (New Mexico was first), according to statistics published this month by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control advocacy group, using data from the independent Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit formed in 2013.
Tennessee ranks second in road rage shooting deaths, report says (dnj.com)
Read that again: 77 people injured or dead in a 5 year period. ZOMG! We must eliminate all them awful Tennessee gun laws and follow the example of places like Chicago where 77 people injured or dead in 5 years is called ” About 2 weeks in April.”
Amazing what happens when you actually use a bit of context, right?
Huff’s “How to Lie with Statistics” is the bible of the anti-Rights people.
Actually, it’s even worse. 2016, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 is really 6 years
when I am driving, I tend to get less worked up at the other drivers on the road when I am carrying. For some reason, that jackass that is too interested in texting to watch the light change just does not bother me.
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If the folks at everytown were to actually talk to people who legally carry a firearm, they might find out that de-escalate has a near religious level of meaning.
But that would punch holes in The Narrative [TM] you could drive a Mack truck through.
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Everytown’s “solution” for “gun violence” only works if people who legally carry a firearm really are as crazy and violent as they claim. They won’t ever jeopardize the cause — or the sweet, sweet funding checks from Michael Bloomberg and the Joyce Foundation — by actually talking to us!
If gun owners were even half as violent as fascists, there wouldn’t BE any fascists.
Re statistics, etc. … Context really matters. And HeyJackass! is a great site – I was especially grateful for them when I lived in the Chicagoland area.
77 people “injured or killed”, in six years, in Tennessee.
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As you pointed out, in Chicago 77 people injured or killed in shootings covers about two weeks in April. I’d add that in Chicago one bad weekend in July/August could also get there. (Tempers seem to shorten as the temperature rises. Most of the infamous “50 people killed this weekend in the Windy City” stories are from mid-late summer.)
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But it’s not just that Chicago is more violent. It’s that they’re actually citing six years of data from a whole state with permissive gun laws, as if it’s worse than one bad weekend from one city with restrictive laws.
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Whatever number of injured or killed they arbitrarily decide is “too many”, the city of Chicago will hit that number 300x faster than all of Tennessee. But Tennessee is obviously the problem. Right.
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The moral and logical disconnects required to push The Narrative [TM] are mind-boggling.
Fun fact … According to the US Census, Chicago and Tennessee have roughly equal populations.