James Peck: Kristof’s anti-gun rant more propaganda than opinion

Re “Two more lives taken by guns” (Opinions, Aug. 28): The op-ed by New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof would have us thinking that more people in the U.S. have been murdered by guns since 1968 than all lives lost in all the wars that the U.S. has fought, certainly a horrific number. However, he purposely neglected to explain that his numbers refer not just to murders but also accidental deaths by gunshot, police killings of criminals, self-defense killings of criminals who are attacking innocent people in their homes, etc., as well as suicides. FBI statistics show that about a fourth of yearly gun deaths are actually murders. In typical anti-gun fashion, Kristof’s intent was to sensationalize and mislead rather than inform. It would behoove the press to perform more fact checking before publishing such propaganda.

This story was originally published September 2, 2015 at 6:43 PM with the headline "James Peck: Kristof’s anti-gun rant more propaganda than opinion."