12 ms·

Folks, the number of shooting crimes (including school shootings) in the United States is going down. I know times like this are the worst times to mention this

by m52go 9y ago

Folks, the number of shooting crimes (including school shootings) in the United States is going down. I know times like this are the worst times to mention this fact, but it's true [0]. The media frenzy makes this look like some kind of out-of-control epidemic, but that's just not the case. This does not mean we should do nothing about them...any shooting is an event that should not happen. But it's important to realize this fact because too many people are approaching the topic emotionally rather than rationally and proposing extreme reactions to trends that simply aren't as extreme as they perceive them to be. If you disagree, ask yourself why there are so many cases of shootings in the news all of a sudden. While some recent shootings have indeed been tail-event massacres (i.e., unusually major), many have been events that would otherwise not have attracted much attention (that psycho teacher who shot himself in a closet a few weeks ago comes to mind...why the heck was that on national news?). [0] https://mises.org/wire/there-are-fewer-school-shootings-now-during-1990s https://mises.org/wire/there-are-fewer-school-shootings-now-...

just_testing 9y ago
This is one of those statistics where there are only two distinct values that matter: - Zero shootings - Too many shootings Any number bigger than zero is too much and we should do our best as a society to decrease it to zero.
- m52go 9y ago
  That's not my point. My point is that facts are being overlooked in order to exaggerate the trend. Pick a random person on the street and they'll probably tell you the number of shootings in the USA is going up, not down. As I said, action should be taken. But if people are misinformed, the correct action cannot be taken.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    If we are to continue to reduce the number of events, we need to be more upset about each event. edit: I agree that we should have the correct information. But it's important to keep pushing to improve.
  - tacomonstrous 9y ago
    Even conceding that point, so what? There are probably fewer cases of workplace sexual harassment than there were 20 years ago. That doesn't mean people shouldn't be vehement about ending them altogether.
- JeremyBanks 9y ago
  Reducing the outcomes to a binary, eliminating the ability to perceive incremental improvement, is a toxic, antisocial and anti-intellectual bit of rhetoric.
  - ASalazarMX 9y ago
    He's saying that the ideal is zero shootings. Having fewer shootings is good and can be appreciated, but the ideal goal is still zero.
- ryanx435 9y ago
  Anything more than zero shootings is too much? What a ridiculous assertion. What about deaths from car accidents? What about deaths from hammer? Choking on your toothbrush? Jaywalking? Infections resulting from not washing hands? Carbon monoxide? Your absolutism is dishonest and unhelpful.
  - CobrastanJorji 9y ago
    Yes, there are too many deaths from all of those things, except possibly the toothbrush thing. You may be joking about "Infections resulting from not washing hands," but hospital-acquired infections, which can easily come from exactly this, kill something like 100,000 people a year.
    - timkpaine 9y ago
      And many of these are more highly regulated than guns.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Stabbing everyone to death would reduce shootings to zero. Probably not a good policy, even so.
  - raisedbyninjas 9y ago
    There are about 800 people from Las Vegas with bullet wounds that would have fared better against an elderly man with only a knife.
    - dllthomas 9y ago
      The parent's comment wasn't that eliminating guns would simply lead to more stabbings. It was an example of a policy - literally stab everyone to death, first order - that would have the desired effect but where clearly other aspects than "no shootings" obviously dominate. That said, it's not a perfect response in that it's a logical elaboration of presumably non-literal rhetoric.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > That said, it's not a perfect response in that it's a logical elaboration of presumably non-literal rhetoric. You might view it as a pointed way of seeking clarification of the argument really being made behind that presumably hyperbolic rhetoric.
        dllthomas 9y ago
        Sure. That was meant to be quite mild criticism.
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither and will lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    > He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it. https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...
- lolsal 9y ago
  Is this statistic different other statistics about homicides and other forms of death? - domestic violence that results in homicide - homicides in prison - automobile related deaths - drug overdoses - suicides I think most people would agree that life is precious and should be preserved. I'm not sure most people would agree that we could get any of the above statistics to zero.
dabeeeenster 9y ago
"The media frenzy makes this look like some kind of out-of-control epidemic, but that's just not the case." That's exactly the case. Just because numbers are going down doesn't make it any less of an epidemic. "people are approaching the topic emotionally rather than rationally and proposing extreme reactions" Suggesting people don't own assault rifles is not an "extreme reaction".
- matte_black 9y ago
  First off, the term assault rifle probably isn’t what you think you’re referring to. Second, the reason effective conversations can’t be had on gun control is because of how emotional and out of touch the anti-gun crowd gets. A lot of this is due to activists and the media riling people up. Gun owners are all about safety and personal responsibility, and many do support sensible gun control laws. The problem is, as soon as someone stands up and says “Oh hey here’s an idea why don’t we just ban all guns lol!!” then you know the conversation is over, and after that point it’s just a downward spiral. Nothing can be done unless people start taking a rational, sober approach to these issues. Not with tear-fueled rage. The people you are arguing with didn’t shoot and kill your family, in fact quite the opposite, if they had the chance they would probably jump at the opportunity of saving them with a firearm. You could argue whether or not they’d be effective, but it’s the thought that counts.
  - dabeeeenster 9y ago
    "Gun owners are all about safety and personal responsibility" Not all gun owners.
  - jjoonathan 9y ago
    Since HN only shows vote totals, I want you to know that you aren't alone.
    - matte_black 9y ago
      Thank you, it will be some comfort after this post has long been downvoted and dead.
ericmcer 9y ago
Do you think this is a coordinated, planned effort by the media, or an organic event? Did they decide they wanted to convince the public that shootings are suddenly a much bigger issue, or did shootings start to be great selling news so now they seek them out aggressively. It kind of reminds me of the late 90's and early 2000's when all of a sudden kids getting abducted became huge news. That forever changed the way adults could interact with strange kids, and how parents viewed unknown adults.
- labster 9y ago
  You're right it's part of a huge conspiracy by the media to inform us that people are dying. Why newspapers and cable news would seek to inform people of current events remains a mystery, but it seems awfully suspicious.
- uhhyeahdude 9y ago
  Prior to that there was the Satanic Panic of the eighties, which did even more to the shifting relationships between children and adults. The panic was a seemingly organic media ratings fest, and reading up on it (I was born later than the audience) has been fascinating. I cannot speak to your other proposals, as I would be adding additional speculation to something borne of tragedy that cannot be denied, regardless of specifics.
wavefunction 9y ago
I suppose we can kill the hysteria driving mass gun ownership then! I'm sure the NRA will be happy to turn down the hyperbolic rhetoric about how you could be double rape-murdered at any given second now that these results on violent crime have come out and we can all breath easier.
johnny313 9y ago
> Folks, the number of shooting crimes (including school shootings) in the United States is going down. This is not supported by other analyses that look at the issue. FiveThirtyEight looked at several measures of school shootings / mass shootings and came to the opposite conclusion. [0] [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-matter-how-you-measure-them-mass-shooting-deaths-are-up/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-matter-how-you-measu...
- m52go 9y ago
  Then we need to figure out which numbers are correct. That shouldn't be rocket science. But either way, hysteria still isn't the way forward...it never is. I won't attempt to debate any of the points made in your article, as I'm not authority on the subject myself, but thanks for linking it. However, you might find this article written by a former member of the FiveThirtyEight team interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-...
  - arrrg 9y ago
    The article you linked seems to make reference only to school shootings, while the article posted in response to you doesn’t limit itself in such a way.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    Is there some minimal number of school shootings that's acceptable? My position is that we clearly have shown that this country cannot be trusted with personal possession of firearms, so let's all calmly proceed towards no longer having them around.
    - alehul 9y ago
      Less is always better, and so we should jump on board with efforts that will reduce them. At the same time, it was laid out in the Federalist Papers (No. 46) that the intention of our Second Amendment is to protect against government tyranny. To summarize the American philosophy: School shootings and gun violence are awful, but the possibility of a genocide or enslavement is worse. I'm not enough of an expert in any field to speculate which is objectively better, however I've always personally believed that the U.S. will be safer when viewed in a longer timescale compared to our neighbors.
pavs 9y ago
The link is not only factually wrong but also from a biased source. Mass shootings in the US: there have been 1,624 in 1,870 days https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/... See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
- godelski 9y ago
  I don't want to sound picky, but wikipedia isn't the best source on controversial topics.
- Merad 9y ago
  Guardian: "1,624 mass shootings in 1,870 days" Wikipedia (sourced from CNN): "90 mass shootings between 1966 and 2012" They both use the same definition of mass shooting (four or more victims) so how is there an order of magnitude difference between their numbers? Ah, I see. CNN excluded gang violence in their numbers, and the Guardian included it. Seems like they may have a few biases of their own.
euyyn 9y ago
Are you Progress Man? :) https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/excelsior https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/excelsior
tomlock 9y ago
America is 12th in the world in per-capita gun deaths by country. Should we be satisfied with 12th?
- wtf_is_up 9y ago
  That's surprisingly good considering the number of guns in circulation and ease of obtaining them in general.
- xienze 9y ago
  Source please. I’m almost certain that includes suicides.
  - zachwood 9y ago
    Why wouldn't it?
    - xienze 9y ago
      Because including suicides paints a misleading picture. When you say “gun deaths” with no qualifiers people think murders involving a gun.
      - DanBC 9y ago
        Why is it misleading? It's mostly impulsive acts of violence. Most, but not all, of it is against the self. The key method of reducing violence to other people and reducing death by suicide is to reduce access to means. Reducing access to guns would help both problems.
      - mercer 9y ago
        I disagree. One of the main arguments against the proliferation of guns is that they're too powerful to have, barring a good reason. Accidental death (a child getting a hold of one, for example) and suicide are often brought forward as examples of this, alongside murder in a 'heat of the moment' situations. In fact, I've rarely heard 'predetermined' murder as the primary argument in discussions I've had on the matter (at least over here in Europe). Mostly because murderers who intend to do so with guns will not be deterred by guns being illegal, so it's relatively weak argument.
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
There are many responses to the various arguments that the article employs, some more reasonable than others, but really the thing that stuck with me was that this is the worst plot I have seen used unironically in 2018: https://mises.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/victimization.PNG?itok=Nzeba31O https://mises.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/publ...
godelski 9y ago
I just wish we would talk about things that are causing the shootings in the first place and not boil it down to overly simplified explanations of "can't stop crazy" vs "why do we even need guns?" All that does is create an endless loop of stupidity and people dying. I mean the gun death problem is extremely multifaceted and there's a huge difference in how school shootings, active shooters, gangs, suicides, etc happen and how you mitigate them.
wffurr 9y ago
Can you not start this discussion while the blood is still wet on the ground? What is wrong with you?
- fatjokes 9y ago
  To be fair, it wasn't dry from the last shooting (Parkland) yet before it got wet from this one. If you have to wait until it's dry to discuss solutions, at this rate you'd be waiting forever!
  - wffurr 9y ago
    The GP isn't talking "solutions", he's talking media conspiracies and down playing the issue.
jjakque 9y ago
> The media frenzy makes this look like some kind of out-of-control epidemic Any rationale behind media sensationalize shootings? Just purely for the stun/shock factor? or perhaps borderline propaganda towards certain agenda?
webnrrd2k 9y ago
mises.org is well known as a strongly libertarian site. I personally have trouble taking opinions from them at face value. I think it would be roughly equivalent to taking Fox News's opinion of Democrats at face value. Yeah, maybe they have a good point, maybe they don't, but I don't trust the source enough put the effort in to work it out.

by m52go 9y ago

just_testing 9y ago

This is one of those statistics where there are only two distinct values that matter: - Zero shootings - Too many shootings Any number bigger than zero is too much and we should do our best as a society to decrease it to zero.

m52go 9y ago
That's not my point. My point is that facts are being overlooked in order to exaggerate the trend. Pick a random person on the street and they'll probably tell you the number of shootings in the USA is going up, not down. As I said, action should be taken. But if people are misinformed, the correct action cannot be taken.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  If we are to continue to reduce the number of events, we need to be more upset about each event. edit: I agree that we should have the correct information. But it's important to keep pushing to improve.
- tacomonstrous 9y ago
  Even conceding that point, so what? There are probably fewer cases of workplace sexual harassment than there were 20 years ago. That doesn't mean people shouldn't be vehement about ending them altogether.
JeremyBanks 9y ago
Reducing the outcomes to a binary, eliminating the ability to perceive incremental improvement, is a toxic, antisocial and anti-intellectual bit of rhetoric.
- ASalazarMX 9y ago
  He's saying that the ideal is zero shootings. Having fewer shootings is good and can be appreciated, but the ideal goal is still zero.
ryanx435 9y ago
Anything more than zero shootings is too much? What a ridiculous assertion. What about deaths from car accidents? What about deaths from hammer? Choking on your toothbrush? Jaywalking? Infections resulting from not washing hands? Carbon monoxide? Your absolutism is dishonest and unhelpful.
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  Yes, there are too many deaths from all of those things, except possibly the toothbrush thing. You may be joking about "Infections resulting from not washing hands," but hospital-acquired infections, which can easily come from exactly this, kill something like 100,000 people a year.
  - timkpaine 9y ago
    And many of these are more highly regulated than guns.
dragonwriter 9y ago
Stabbing everyone to death would reduce shootings to zero. Probably not a good policy, even so.
- raisedbyninjas 9y ago
  There are about 800 people from Las Vegas with bullet wounds that would have fared better against an elderly man with only a knife.
  - dllthomas 9y ago
    The parent's comment wasn't that eliminating guns would simply lead to more stabbings. It was an example of a policy - literally stab everyone to death, first order - that would have the desired effect but where clearly other aspects than "no shootings" obviously dominate. That said, it's not a perfect response in that it's a logical elaboration of presumably non-literal rhetoric.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > That said, it's not a perfect response in that it's a logical elaboration of presumably non-literal rhetoric. You might view it as a pointed way of seeking clarification of the argument really being made behind that presumably hyperbolic rhetoric.
      - dllthomas 9y ago
        Sure. That was meant to be quite mild criticism.
jjoonathan 9y ago
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither and will lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  > He was writing about a tax dispute between the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the family of the Penns, the proprietary family of the Pennsylvania colony who ruled it from afar. And the legislature was trying to tax the Penn family lands to pay for frontier defense during the French and Indian War. And the Penn family kept instructing the governor to veto. Franklin felt that this was a great affront to the ability of the legislature to govern. And so he actually meant purchase a little temporary safety very literally. The Penn family was trying to give a lump sum of money in exchange for the General Assembly's acknowledging that it did not have the authority to tax it. https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famous-liberty-safety-quote-lost-its-context-in-21st-century https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...
lolsal 9y ago
Is this statistic different other statistics about homicides and other forms of death? - domestic violence that results in homicide - homicides in prison - automobile related deaths - drug overdoses - suicides I think most people would agree that life is precious and should be preserved. I'm not sure most people would agree that we could get any of the above statistics to zero.

dabeeeenster 9y ago

"The media frenzy makes this look like some kind of out-of-control epidemic, but that's just not the case." That's exactly the case. Just because numbers are going down doesn't make it any less of an epidemic. "people are approaching the topic emotionally rather than rationally and proposing extreme reactions" Suggesting people don't own assault rifles is not an "extreme reaction".

matte_black 9y ago
First off, the term assault rifle probably isn’t what you think you’re referring to. Second, the reason effective conversations can’t be had on gun control is because of how emotional and out of touch the anti-gun crowd gets. A lot of this is due to activists and the media riling people up. Gun owners are all about safety and personal responsibility, and many do support sensible gun control laws. The problem is, as soon as someone stands up and says “Oh hey here’s an idea why don’t we just ban all guns lol!!” then you know the conversation is over, and after that point it’s just a downward spiral. Nothing can be done unless people start taking a rational, sober approach to these issues. Not with tear-fueled rage. The people you are arguing with didn’t shoot and kill your family, in fact quite the opposite, if they had the chance they would probably jump at the opportunity of saving them with a firearm. You could argue whether or not they’d be effective, but it’s the thought that counts.
- dabeeeenster 9y ago
  "Gun owners are all about safety and personal responsibility" Not all gun owners.
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  Since HN only shows vote totals, I want you to know that you aren't alone.
  - matte_black 9y ago
    Thank you, it will be some comfort after this post has long been downvoted and dead.

ericmcer 9y ago

Do you think this is a coordinated, planned effort by the media, or an organic event? Did they decide they wanted to convince the public that shootings are suddenly a much bigger issue, or did shootings start to be great selling news so now they seek them out aggressively. It kind of reminds me of the late 90's and early 2000's when all of a sudden kids getting abducted became huge news. That forever changed the way adults could interact with strange kids, and how parents viewed unknown adults.

labster 9y ago
You're right it's part of a huge conspiracy by the media to inform us that people are dying. Why newspapers and cable news would seek to inform people of current events remains a mystery, but it seems awfully suspicious.
uhhyeahdude 9y ago
Prior to that there was the Satanic Panic of the eighties, which did even more to the shifting relationships between children and adults. The panic was a seemingly organic media ratings fest, and reading up on it (I was born later than the audience) has been fascinating. I cannot speak to your other proposals, as I would be adding additional speculation to something borne of tragedy that cannot be denied, regardless of specifics.

wavefunction 9y ago

I suppose we can kill the hysteria driving mass gun ownership then! I'm sure the NRA will be happy to turn down the hyperbolic rhetoric about how you could be double rape-murdered at any given second now that these results on violent crime have come out and we can all breath easier.

johnny313 9y ago

> Folks, the number of shooting crimes (including school shootings) in the United States is going down. This is not supported by other analyses that look at the issue. FiveThirtyEight looked at several measures of school shootings / mass shootings and came to the opposite conclusion. [0] [0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-matter-how-you-measure-them-mass-shooting-deaths-are-up/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-matter-how-you-measu...

m52go 9y ago
Then we need to figure out which numbers are correct. That shouldn't be rocket science. But either way, hysteria still isn't the way forward...it never is. I won't attempt to debate any of the points made in your article, as I'm not authority on the subject myself, but thanks for linking it. However, you might find this article written by a former member of the FiveThirtyEight team interesting: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-control-was-the-answer-my-research-told-me-otherwise/2017/10/03/d33edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-think-gun-...
- arrrg 9y ago
  The article you linked seems to make reference only to school shootings, while the article posted in response to you doesn’t limit itself in such a way.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Is there some minimal number of school shootings that's acceptable? My position is that we clearly have shown that this country cannot be trusted with personal possession of firearms, so let's all calmly proceed towards no longer having them around.
  - alehul 9y ago
    Less is always better, and so we should jump on board with efforts that will reduce them. At the same time, it was laid out in the Federalist Papers (No. 46) that the intention of our Second Amendment is to protect against government tyranny. To summarize the American philosophy: School shootings and gun violence are awful, but the possibility of a genocide or enslavement is worse. I'm not enough of an expert in any field to speculate which is objectively better, however I've always personally believed that the U.S. will be safer when viewed in a longer timescale compared to our neighbors.

pavs 9y ago

The link is not only factually wrong but also from a biased source. Mass shootings in the US: there have been 1,624 in 1,870 days https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/02/america-mass-shootings-gun-violence https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/oct/... See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...

godelski 9y ago
I don't want to sound picky, but wikipedia isn't the best source on controversial topics.
Merad 9y ago
Guardian: "1,624 mass shootings in 1,870 days" Wikipedia (sourced from CNN): "90 mass shootings between 1966 and 2012" They both use the same definition of mass shooting (four or more victims) so how is there an order of magnitude difference between their numbers? Ah, I see. CNN excluded gang violence in their numbers, and the Guardian included it. Seems like they may have a few biases of their own.

euyyn 9y ago

Are you Progress Man? :) https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/excelsior https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/excelsior

tomlock 9y ago

America is 12th in the world in per-capita gun deaths by country. Should we be satisfied with 12th?

wtf_is_up 9y ago
That's surprisingly good considering the number of guns in circulation and ease of obtaining them in general.
xienze 9y ago
Source please. I’m almost certain that includes suicides.
- zachwood 9y ago
  Why wouldn't it?
  - xienze 9y ago
    Because including suicides paints a misleading picture. When you say “gun deaths” with no qualifiers people think murders involving a gun.
    - DanBC 9y ago
      Why is it misleading? It's mostly impulsive acts of violence. Most, but not all, of it is against the self. The key method of reducing violence to other people and reducing death by suicide is to reduce access to means. Reducing access to guns would help both problems.
    - mercer 9y ago
      I disagree. One of the main arguments against the proliferation of guns is that they're too powerful to have, barring a good reason. Accidental death (a child getting a hold of one, for example) and suicide are often brought forward as examples of this, alongside murder in a 'heat of the moment' situations. In fact, I've rarely heard 'predetermined' murder as the primary argument in discussions I've had on the matter (at least over here in Europe). Mostly because murderers who intend to do so with guns will not be deterred by guns being illegal, so it's relatively weak argument.

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago

There are many responses to the various arguments that the article employs, some more reasonable than others, but really the thing that stuck with me was that this is the worst plot I have seen used unironically in 2018: https://mises.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/victimization.PNG?itok=Nzeba31O https://mises.org/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/publ...

godelski 9y ago

I just wish we would talk about things that are causing the shootings in the first place and not boil it down to overly simplified explanations of "can't stop crazy" vs "why do we even need guns?" All that does is create an endless loop of stupidity and people dying. I mean the gun death problem is extremely multifaceted and there's a huge difference in how school shootings, active shooters, gangs, suicides, etc happen and how you mitigate them.

wffurr 9y ago

Can you not start this discussion while the blood is still wet on the ground? What is wrong with you?

fatjokes 9y ago
To be fair, it wasn't dry from the last shooting (Parkland) yet before it got wet from this one. If you have to wait until it's dry to discuss solutions, at this rate you'd be waiting forever!
- wffurr 9y ago
  The GP isn't talking "solutions", he's talking media conspiracies and down playing the issue.

jjakque 9y ago

> The media frenzy makes this look like some kind of out-of-control epidemic Any rationale behind media sensationalize shootings? Just purely for the stun/shock factor? or perhaps borderline propaganda towards certain agenda?

webnrrd2k 9y ago

mises.org is well known as a strongly libertarian site. I personally have trouble taking opinions from them at face value. I think it would be roughly equivalent to taking Fox News's opinion of Democrats at face value. Yeah, maybe they have a good point, maybe they don't, but I don't trust the source enough put the effort in to work it out.