I am having a good laugh right now at the sad quality of the CBS News. Everytime I read about gun related deaths while on the job they seem to be going up and up.

CBS is the latest to throw some numbers out that have little to do with reality.

Listen to the evening news and you’re likely to hear a grizzly story about a disaffected worker or estranged spouse or dissatisfied customer arriving at a workplace and going ballistic. It’s all too common.

About 17 employees are murdered every week in American workplaces by someone with a gun, making gun-related killings the third-biggest safety hazard facing American workers — right after vehicles and machines. In fact, gun-related homicide is the leading cause of death at the workplace for women. “about 17” per week he said.

Lets see if it is correct. Now to err on the side of caution I will use only the number 16.5 to get these numbers. Don’t want to be accused of inflating these would I?

16.5 dead
x52 weeks a year
equals 858

Damn. That’s a lot of dead people. Only problem is it is made up. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics only gives the number of 487. Slightly smaller then the 858 number. The problem is that 487 is even a slightly misleading number when the data is examined.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution tried to use the 487 number in one of their anti-gun screeds but one of my commenters shot it down very fast.

But its accuracy is irrelevant. Notice the editorial’s wording, “487 people were shot to death at work.” That total apparently includes every police officer, cab driver, bank teller, pawnbroker and quicky-mart employee shot and killed “at work,” whether the shooter was a fleeing criminal, disgruntled customer, armed robber — or someone in a more relevant category like “angry employee” or “fed-up manager.”

So the number CBS is giving out is bunko.

But I will say now that I am not surprised at all. Robert B. Reich, the editorial author, is best described as biased. I was surprised when I found what position he held.

As the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor, Reich presided over the implementation of the Family and Medical Leave Act; led a national fight against sweatshops in the U.S. and illegal child labor around the world; headed the administration’s successful effort to raise the minimum wage; secured worker’s pensions, and launched job-training programs, one-stop career centers, and school-to-work initiatives. Under his leadership, the Department of Labor earned more than 30 awards for innovation and government reinvention. A 1996 poll of cabinet experts conducted by the Hearst newspapers rated him the most effective cabinet secretary during the Clinton administration.

I would think that a person who was in charge of the department of labor would have better numbers, or at least tell the truth.

Posted in uncategorized on August 20th, 2005 by gunner | RSS 2.0 |