Propaganda_regarding_Honduras_and

Page last modified February 24, 2019.

This is an optional reading for the students in my CSC 301 Computers and Society class.

Propaganda Regarding Disparity in Homicide Rates of Honduras and Switzerland

by Dr. Marek A. Suchenek

November 26, 2017

This article is posted here for in-class educational use only. No other use or uses is/are allowed.

There was a picture circulating over the Internet in the aftermath of Umpqua Community College shooting in 2015:

Although the above picture had some inaccuracies (e.g., Honduras does not ban its citizens form possessing firearms, it just makes it so difficult that - as of 2009 - only about 4 percent of population was armed; Switzerland does not have the world's lowest homicide rate, it just has one of the very lowest homicide rates), it debunks the myth that the reason for high homicide rates is the so-called "availability of guns".

Not surprisingly, the above picture became a subject of verbal attacks from the Left.

Here is an example of propaganda from "Fact Check":

"A contrast of radically different gun laws and homicide rates in Honduras and Switzerland is based on flawed premises."

https://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/hondswitz.asp

"For a comparison of this nature to be valid, the two things being compared should be fairly equivalent outside the factors being examined, but it isn't the case here."

Comment (MS): The above "rule" is based on a fallacy as it would never allow on to compare, say a socialist economy to a capitalism economy in order to conclude which of he two system leads to a higher standards of living. Obviously, Honduras has a high saturation with violent criminals while Switzerland has a low saturation with violent criminals (which means that violent behavior has been adaptive in Honduras and maladaptive in Switzerland), never mind many other differences, like a gap in academic accomplishment, corruption levels, social approval or disapproval of organized crime, etc. All these do not negate the fact that comparison of Honduras vs. Switzerland demonstrates that saturation with firearms does not cause homicide rates to go up - it depends whether one arms bad guys (violent criminals), in which case the homicide rates go up, or good guys (benign, law-abiding citizens), in which case the homicide rates go down.

Here is similar propaganda from "Politifact":

"Viral, flawed post compares Honduras, Switzerland on gun laws and homicide rates"

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/sep/30/
viral-image/viral-flawed-post-compares-honduras-switzerland-gu/

"The viral post aims to jolt readers with a counterintuitive implication: Gun laws can lead to deadly unintended consequences."

"But the post is flawed on many levels. The comparison based on similar population size alone is shallow, and non-scientific. Moreover, Switzerland does not have the world’s lowest homicide level, and the post is flatly wrong about the laws in each country."

Comment (MS): The above is clever attempt to dismiss the undeniable fact on irrelevant technicalities. The article, being itself non-scientific, dismisses the obvious because the said obvious ... is "non-scientific". The above argument belongs to the category "Whom are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

Never mind that the claim that high gun ownership in the U.S. is the cause of its relatively high (as compared to some select nations, still about half of world's average) homicide rate has no proof whatsoever, scientific or not. Which "detail" does not prevent the "Fact Check" and "Politifact" from axiomatically asserting it as true.

Conclusion

If the comparison of Honduras and Switzerland does not pass the rigors of proof then, please, show me a proof of the claim that a high gun ownership leads to a high homicide rate that passes the said rigors. Hint: No such proof does exist.

As a matter of fact, the above claim has been proven false, for instance in a scientific study by a renowned scholar, John Lott (at that time, at University of Chicago), summarized in "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press), see http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html/ for an interview with the author.

Thus the "Fact Check" and "Politifact" are trying to change the reality (facts) with skillfully chosen fallacies and falsehoods, in order to influence public opinion. That is propaganda.

They also are trying to impose a double standard for the burden of proof; on one hand they summarily dismiss the data that support the conclusion (that homicide rates are not driven by availability of guns) that they disagree with and reject conclusion as "not scientific enough", but on the other hand they they advocate vigorously their unscientific conclusion (that homicide rates are driven by availability of guns) that not only is not supported by data but is actually refuted by the data. And that is propaganda, too, the purpose of which is to insulate from truth those who are blaming violence and homicides on guns rather than on violent individuals and organizations (for instance, violent gangs) and their enablers (for instance, groups and societies that made violence and homicide generally adaptive acts). Such an assignment of guilt (guns, not individuals or organizations, are guilty of violence) appears necessary for a defense of human universalism that would make us dispose of our guns in order to keep the evil and the violent among us. And that is the long-term goal of the said propaganda.