Anti-liberty/gun cracktivists are infamous for playing fast and loose with the truth. They don’t necessarily always outright lie about things though that’s far from uncommon. They also cherry pick and misrepresent data, conceal the whole truth, or mischaracterize whatever is necessary to demonize guns and their owners.
Alex Nguyen of the Giffords anti-liberty/gun organization strains mightily to connect the Big Beautiful Bill’s removal of illegal immigrants and able-bodied deadbeats from Medicaid to “gun violence.”
Graphic: Glock 17, Author
[R]esearch suggests that Medicaid expansion has also reduced crime and gun violence. States that have expanded Medicaid benefits experience lower firearm homicide rates and see fewer individuals die from firearm injuries. In fact, in states that expanded Medicaid, there was a significant reduction of in-hospital deaths from firearm injuries.
Oh? And what “research” would that be? What methodology? Were the results replicable? And how, exactly, do those results “suggest” anything? Are we speaking of correlation or causation? Surely if a causal link could be found, Giffords and the Media would be all over it.
Just how could more Medicaid benefits reduce homicide rates? And if that was possible, why wouldn’t homicide by other weapons—knives, hands, feet, baseball bats, etc.—likewise be reduced? Are government medical handouts somehow capable of affecting the brains and motivations of murderers? Considering hospitals cannot legally turn away the ill and injured, how is it possible fewer people could die from firearm injuries? In what physical universe could that happen? Having more Medicaid keeps people with bullet wounds from dying while they’re in the hospital? How does that work?
Additionally, states that expanded Medicaid eligibility experienced lower rates of overall suicide and overall homicide, as well as reductions in various types of crime—including violent crime. The safety net of Medicaid and other benefits creates an environment with less economic insecurity and desperation, which is a major contributor to crime and violence, both against others and against oneself.
Now more Medicaid reduces suicide rates and all kinds of homicide and reduces “various types of crime”—pray, tell, tell!—and of course, “violent crime” is included in “various types.” Does Medicaid make people taller, slimmer and better looking? Does it straighten their teeth and cure acne?
Ah. There it is: “economic insecurity and desperation”—I wonder how that’s scientifically measured?—“is a major contributor to crime and violence.” Define “major contributor.” How is that quantified? Do only economically insecure people commit violent crimes? Only desperate people, and about what might they be desperate? And boy, Giffords covers all the bases. If those economically insecure and desperate people don’t commit crimes against others, they’ll do it to themselves!
In other words, Medicaid expansion has made Americans safer from gun violence.
Numbers please, Giffords, numbers. What are the real numbers?
But by making it harder to access Medicaid benefits, Republicans will stymie the reductions in gun violence, violent death, and crime that we saw due to Medicaid expansion. Already, states that made it harder to access Medicaid have seen increases in violent crime. When Tennessee disenrolled residents from Medicaid, the state’s violent crime rate increased almost immediately.
These excerpts are taken from a slightly longer article with a variety of links, but none answers any of the logical questions Giffords claims the “research” demonstrates. Where is the causal link between, as the article suggests, Tennessee disenrolling residents from Medicaid and an almost immediate increase in “violent crime rate[s]”? How could that single event—if it actually happened--possibly be responsible for such an increase, and how could it possibly be accurately measured? Wouldn’t such a linkage be, at best, mere correlation? Trend A is moving in the same general direction as trend B, so they must be somehow connected? Most people die in bed, so the correlation is mattresses are deadly?
Taking a link in the slightly larger article we find the study came from The Journal of Internal Medicine, using data from 2012-2016. It begins with the assumption that “Prior research suggests that public policy plays a role in firearm mortality…” Interestingly, it concludes: “Healthcare resources play a role in population-level firearm outcomes but alone are not sufficient to decrease firearm-related homicide or suicide.”
That’s not quite what Giffords “suggests” the research reveals is it?
Apparently, Giffords is relying on “research” from medical researchers who commonly seek to find or manufacture some link--any link--in the service of banning guns between medicine and criminal misuse of guns. In this case both the research and Giffords rely on results that “suggest” what they’ve predetermined, though this particular bit of research was sufficiently honest to conclude what Giffords was not.
In any case, how “healthcare resources” could possibly “play a role in population-level outcomes,” and what that role might be, remains as elusive as does the truth for Giffords.
On a different subject, if you are not already a subscriber, you may not know that we’ve implemented something new: A weekly newsletter with unique content from our editors for subscribers only. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.