General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bob Costas just did an anti-gun editorial during half time of Sunday Night Football [View all]underpants
(182,626 posts)BTW- John Lott "answered" Costas - without pointing out that Costas was quoting/paraphrasing someone else's remarks
The truth about Costas, Belcher and guns
By John Lott
Published December 03, 2012
Guns can make it easier to kill people, but that isnt relevant here. Even if no weapon existed, the strength differential is so large that Belcher could have easily killed Perkins in any number of ways. The same is true, sadly, about suicide. There are so many ways that Belcher could have killed himself, including crashing his car at a high rate of speed into a wall or even another car as he drove to Arrowhead Stadium.
To put it bluntly, criminals are not typical citizens. About 90 percent of adult murderers have an adult criminal record. They tend to have low IQs and long histories of social problems. Murders are also very heavily concentrated among minorities in urban areas. [font color=red ] like most of the population is in urban areas? [/font] Over 70 percent of murders occur in about 3 percent of the counties in the US. Even if our country passed laws banning guns, most of these murderers are not the kind of people who are going to voluntarily turn in their weapons.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/03/truth-about-costas-belcher-and-guns/#ixzz2E2X3Tljl
As posted above, Lott goes to "The Bell Curve" "low IQs" scientific racism here and completely fails to mention that Costas was quoting and paraphrasing Jason Whitlock who is an African-American sports writer.
Much of the work referenced by the Bell Curve was funded by the Pioneer Fund
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Race_and_intelligence
Pioneer Fund
The Pioneer Fund is an American non-profit foundation established in 1937 "to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences." Until his death on 2 October 2012, the fund was headed by psychology professor J. Philippe Rushton, the fund states that it focuses on projects it perceives will not be easily funded due to controversial subject matter. The organization is frequently described as racist and "white supremacist" in nature,[1][2][3] or as a "hate group".[4]
The 1937 incorporation documents of the Pioneer Fund list two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi Lebensborn breeding program,[13] was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those "descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended". Its second purpose was to support academic research and the "dissemination of information, into the 'problem of heredity and eugenics'" and "the problems of race betterment".[12] The Pioneer Fund argues the "race betterment" has always referred to the "human race" referred to earlier in the sentence, and critics argue it referred to racial groups. The document was amended in 1985 and the phrase changed to "human race betterment."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fund