I'm a believer in the idea of objective facts and objective truth. I don't buy into the whole "my truth" thing except when used to simply describe someone's story. That's all it should ever mean, but it doesn't. People want to conflate their feelings with truth. Then we have those who use statistics and facts, presented without context, to misrepresent what's really happening.
That's why, when there's a media report about some "growing" scourge, I ask questions about the context of their reported numbers. It matters, because if one thing is found in 2025 but three of the things are found in 2026, then that's a three-fold increase, but it's not a significant increase.
And over at the Violence Policy Center — a center on violence that only cares about one type of violence, it should be noted — they have an annual report from Wisconsin.
Let's check that out to see an example of what I'm talking about.
Guns claimed the lives of 735 Wisconsin residents in 2024 according to Gun Death in Wisconsin, a new joint report by the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) Educational Fund, the state’s leading gun violence prevention organization, and the Violence Policy Center (VPC), a national research and advocacy organization working to stop gun death and injury.
The annual study (https://vpc.org/publication/gun-death-in-wisconsin/), released the week prior to the Emergency Gun Violence Summit being held in Milwaukee, on Tuesday, October 13, analyzes the most recent data available from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
...
“Far too many families have been devastated by gun violence, and the truth is, it does not have to be this way,” stated Nick Matuszewski, executive director of WAVE Educational Fund. “The evidence could not be any clearer: Simple policy changes, like universal background checks and extreme risk laws, save lives. The safety of Wisconsinites should be — must be — the number one priority of the policymakers in our state.”
Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, stated, “Comprehensive, reliable data drives effective public policy. Such information quantifies public health threats and aids in the development and implementation of effective solutions. This annual study’s goal is to serve as one more tool for advocates, organizations, and policymakers working to reduce gun violence in Wisconsin.”
What follows are a lot of statistics, all designed to make Wisconsin look like it's practically a warzone and desperately needs gun control.
However, the homicide rate in 2024 there was 4.8 per 100,000 people. The national rate was 5.1, meaning that Wisconsin was more safe than the rest of the nation, though admittedly by not a whole lot.
In fact, Wisconsin had a lower rate of so-called gun deaths than Illinois, Maryland, Delaware, Colorado, and the D.C..
It should be noted that these states already have both universal background checks and red flag laws. It doesn't seem to have helped them out all that much, now has it?
See, the actual truth is that Wisconsin is a state that brought the national average down in 2024, and had fewer so-called gun deaths than states with far more extensive laws on the books. It's not all doom and gloom, but the statistics presented in the report are all taken out of context to make things seem more horrifying than they really are.
There might be some well-intentioned reason for this, admittedly, but that doesn't mean it's right. It's skeevy as hell in my book, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise simply because someone might actually believe the BS they're peddling and are just trying to engage in a little marketing spin to do whatever. If you can't win with the truth, then you don't deserve to win.
It's just that simple.
