NRA reasoning

[fuji]

Here in post #87, I left both choices open as to whether he was ignorant or was lying.

You keep trying to force these absolute descriptions of Bloomberg. First you try this ludicrous claim that the only two possibilities in the world are "fuji knows more about New York than Bloomberg" or "Bloomberg is absolutely correct in every single thing he says". Now you are trying to pull an equally ludicrous "Either Bloomberg is completely ignorant and doesn't know anything at all or else he's blatantly lying" sort of characterization.

I gave you my explanation of Bloomberg: He is an anti-gun politician spinning to the best of his ability with the message that he thinks is going to get him re-elected by his base. Does that make him ignorant or lying? Probably a little of both. His lies are probably more like exaggerations and stretches, and his ignorance is probably a bit of willfull blindness. In other words, he is a politician, behaving like all politicians behave--and it's pretty effective behavior for a politician.

At the end of the day though, there's this:

The data shows his statement was wrong.

 

[fuji]

Interesting study, but I think it asked more questions than it answered.

That's why I picked it. You were trying to portray the entire issue as "gee it's really simple see there's this, er, gun control, and that's why". I wanted to give you an article that really went in to the weeds on some of the different factors so that you could see that there is a WHOLE LOT going on in terms of reasons for the reduction in crime in New York.

They have no conclusive reasons for the drop and are not even sure if the drop is real.

If you read real studies, instead of listening to blowhards like Bloomberg, you will find that "conclusive proof" is rare indeed. Instead you'll find people talking about what is most likely true, and noting all the complicating factors. That's how honest research sounds.

Towards the end of the study they did an analysis and suggested that the drop in crime probably is real, because it matches up with some estimates of crime drawn from other sources. Aggrevated assaults stuck out as something that didn't match up, but all the other categories of crime had NYPD stats being similar to other estimates of crime. Rape, burglary and robbery, homicide, etc., all had the NYPD numbers roughly corroborated by other sources.

Whether that drop is due to CompStat, or whether it's due to community policing, or whether it's due to demographics (gentrification/aging), or because the NYPD ramped up the number of officers on the job, or because of some other reason--it's hard to say.

In particular, at the same time the firearms policy went in a LOT happened: They put a heck of a lot more cops on the street at about the same time, for example.

One other point is that the study ended in 1999 so there is no way to make a valid comparison with the Bloomberg administration and its' policies.

Bloomberg's administration has absolutely nothing to do with gun control in New York, other than he's an anti-gun politician who goes around stumping for it. The policies were enacted by New York State, and they were enacted before Bloomberg became mayor.

Thought you might have known something like that, given how strongly you are advocating for those policies...