News Rick Perry's "Misspeak" on Charleston Shootings

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Rick Perry, a Republican presidential candidate, controversially referred to the Charleston shootings as an "accident," attributing the tragedy to factors other than guns. His staff quickly clarified that he misspoke, intending to say "incident." This incident highlights Perry's tendency to miscommunicate, raising concerns about his ability to effectively engage in diplomatic discussions as president. Critics argue that the public may overlook such gaffes until debates arise, emphasizing the need for a more competent candidate. The discussion also touches on broader themes of gun control, with participants debating the effectiveness of gun laws and the implications of Perry's statements on his credibility. Comparisons are made to other political figures, including President Obama, who also faced scrutiny for verbal missteps. The conversation evolves into a debate about the relationship between gun ownership, crime rates, and the effectiveness of existing laws, with participants presenting various statistics and perspectives on the issue.
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Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry used the Charleston shootings to further advance his anti gun control stand by referring to the shootings as an "accident" because of contributing factors (not guns). His staff immediately corrected His statement saying that He misspoke and meant to say incident.

Rick Perry has a habit of not coming up with the right response. As a president He would have private conversations with world leaders where misspeaking will not be corrected before the damage is done.

We need much much better than He running for the presidency.
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gleem said:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry used the Charleston shootings to further advance his anti gun control stand by referring to the shootings as an "accident" because of contributing factors (not guns). His staff immediately corrected His statement saying that He misspoke and meant to say incident.

Rick Perry has a habit of not coming up with the right response. As a president He would have private conversations with world leaders where misspeaking will not be corrected before the damage is done.

We need much much better than He running for the presidency.
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Not that I am a fan od Rick Perry, but Jr had trouble finding the right terms almost every time he spoke in public, yet I never heard of it affecting diplomacy. Maybe it might appear to some to reflect poorly on our country, but hey, we can always just blame it on Texas.
 
jedishrfu said:
There was this famous mistranslation that resulted in the demand for unconditional surrender and the Atomic bombs on Japan:

I'm actually not seeing a real issue there. There was only one acceptable response, and that wasn't it regardless of the interpretation.

Anyway, Obama had a nice one a week or so ago when he was discussing prisons and mentioned how prisoners have a tough time finding jobs when they leave office.
 
JonDE said:
Not that I am a fan od Rick Perry, but Jr had trouble finding the right terms almost every time he spoke in public, yet I never heard of it affecting diplomacy. Maybe it might appear to some to reflect poorly on our country, but hey, we can always just blame it on Texas.

No one can be sure how one's image or demeanor affects how others will treat him/her or his/hers ideas especially foreign leaders. IMO one can loose credibility quickly by the misuse or misinterpretation of the language especially in tense or serious situations. Don't you think that foreign leaders study the candidates every response to issues presented them. They will know them better than the the vast majority of Americans.

russ_watters said:
Anyway, Obama had a nice one a week or so ago when he was discussing prisons and mentioned how prisoners have a tough time finding jobs when they leave office.

What could we read into that? Was He inadvertently equating inmates with politicians or was it just the usual word that He thinks of when the word "leaving" occurs? Compared to Perry's "faux pas" it conjured up nothing inflammatory. Perry's anti gun control stance and the "apparent" downgrading of the shootings are instantly connected (to me at the very least) making his previous sympathetic remarks to the survivors insincere and meaningless at best.
 
gleem said:
What could we read into that? Was He inadvertently equating inmates with politicians or was it just the usual word that He thinks of when the word "leaving" occurs?
No, he confirmed he was referring specifically to himself. Clinton apparently said something similar (but on purpose) referring to the White House as the country's highest security prison.

I'll find the article where I read these when I get a chance.
 
This is not really about physics, is it?
If this was an accident then gun control is the answer. Indeed, car accidents are usually addressed by "car control". Traffic lights, one way streets etc.
Of course this was NOT an accident and, by reverse logic, gun control is also needed in this interpretation of the event.
There is only one type of logic that implies that no gun control is needed, on the contrary: NRA logic.
 
my2cts said:
Traffic lights, one way streets etc.
interesting you didn't mention registration, which doesn't help.
 
  • #10
So I did not mention something that does not help.
Why then would I?
 
  • #11
my2cts said:
Why then would I?

Glad to see you agree with NRA on that point.
 
  • #12
Not making any attempt to limit the possession of guns to responsible owners is tantamount to approval of their misuse. It is the innocent that suffer the most. How quickly we react to the death of one child killed by an ill designed toy. But kill 20 children with a gun and all we do is wring our hands in disgust.
 
  • #13
You can control behavior. It takes effort to do that.

MADD made progress because they attached consequences to misbehavior.

Assault with a deadly weapon is only a one to five year sentence in Connecticut
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0619.htm
Robbery 1st degree (with deadly weapon) (53a-134) Five years (+)
Sexual assault 3rd degree with a firearm (53a-72b) Two years ^ +
Manslaughter 2nd degree with a firearm (53a-56a) One year (+)
Assault 2nd degree with a firearm (53a-60a) One year

if it's not plea bargained away.

we need these violent people out of society.
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  • #14
Here's that Obama quote:
President Obama may be worrying about life after the White House more than he'd like to admit.

At a star-studded Hollywood fundraiser hosted by actor-producer Tyler Perry Thursday night, Obama confused his present situation with that of a federal prisoner.

"We should be reforming our criminal justice system in such a way that we are not incarcerating non-violent offenders in ways that renders them incapable of getting a job after they leave office," he said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theov...-office-freudian-slip-la-fundraiser/28963803/
 
  • #15
jim hardy said:
You can control behavior. It takes effort to do that.

MADD made progress because they attached consequences to misbehavior.

Assault with a deadly weapon is only a one to five year sentence in Connecticut
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0619.htmif it's not plea bargained away.

we need these violent people out of society.But there seems to be at least a high inverse correlation between tough laws and murder rate in many states, even when it is possible to travel to a nearby state/city with looser regulations.
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  • #16
jim hardy said:
interesting you didn't mention registration, which doesn't help.

How so? Isn't there a non-trivial negative correlation between tough gun laws and murder rate? Isn't the murder rate lower in places where it is harder to get a gun, even when it is possible to travel to neighboring places with looser laws? I don't think this is a clear-cut issue.
 
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  • #17
WWGD said:
Isn't the murder rate lower in places where it is harder to get a gun, even when it is possible to travel to neighboring places with looser laws?
Every sate that passed concealed carry noted a decrease.

Australia noted an increase after they confiscated guns.

I don't want to start a war here,
and it's hard to find impartial sources
i won't use NRA although i trust them more than i do the networks(hey totally lost my respect by painting Trayvon Martin as an angel)

so how about Cato institute? They're a libertarian think tank.

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/gun-control-myths-realities
4. States that allow registered citizens to carry concealed weapons have lower crime rates than those that don’t.

True. The 31 states that have “shall issue” laws allowing private citizens to carry concealed weapons have, on average, a 24 percent lower violent crime rate, a 19 percent lower murder rate and a 39 percent lower robbery rate than states that forbid concealed weapons. In fact, the nine states with the lowest violent crime rates are all right-to-carry states. Remarkably, guns are used for self-defense more than 2 million times a year, three to five times the estimated number of violent crimes committed with guns.

5. Waiting periods lower crime rates.

False. Numerous studies have been conducted on the effects of waiting periods, both before and after the federal Brady bill was passed in 1993. Those studies consistently show that there is no correlation between waiting periods and murder or robbery rates. Florida State University professor Gary Kleck analyzed data from every U.S. city with a population over 100,000 and found that waiting periods had no statistically significant effect. Even University of Maryland anti-gun researcher David McDowell found that “waiting periods have no influence on either gun homicides or gun suicides.”

6. Lower murder rates in foreign countries prove that gun control works.

False. This is one of the favorite arguments of gun control proponents, and yet the facts show that there is simply no correlation between gun control laws and murder or suicide rates across a wide spectrum of nations and cultures. In Israel and Switzerland, for example, a license to possesses guns is available on demand to every law-abiding adult, and guns are easily obtainable in both nations. Both countries also allow widespread carrying of concealed firearms, and yet, admits Dr. Arthur Kellerman, one of the foremost medical advocates of gun control, Switzerland and Israel “have rates of homicide that are low despite rates of home firearm ownership that are at least as high as those in the United States.” A comparison of crime rates within Europe reveals no correlation between access to guns and crime.

The basic premise of the gun control movement, that easy access to guns causes higher crime, is contradicted by the facts, by history and by reason. Let’s hope more people are catching on.

Search on gun control crime and pick your source. You'll find opposing views and will have to make up your own mind.

Part of my youth was misspent.
Sitting once in a seedy bar somewhere in Tennessee,
a patron who seemed to shady even for me to deal with said: " I got out of Florida - that new governor started up their electric chair".
Gov Graham you recall did clean out death row.

So i will always believe there is a deterrent. Fear rules the streets.

old jim
 
  • #18
I don't want a war either, only stating that the reasonable sources I am aware of are still undecided; not a clear-cut issue in either direction.
 
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  • #19
WWGD said:
I don't want a war either, only stating that the reasonable sources I am aware of are still undecided; not a clear-cut issue in either direction.

Thanks.

I prefer to look at raw numbers as they're not emotionally invested.
But every spin factory is doctoring the data to boost their agenda.

I don't guess UN has much reason to spin
here's their murder rate data from a Wikipedia page,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
which gives links to their sources

US shows 4.7 per 100 thousand population which is low for the Americas group.
UNDOC.JPG


another source that i'd guess to be impartial about the numbers is
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state
though i think they do oppose death penalty

Murderbystate.JPG


A breakdown by state follows that little regional one.
The numbers I do believe say homicide is decreasing

just why is contentious.

Thanks for your civility

old jim
 
  • #20
Jim, no problem, let's both enjoy the fact that PF provides/is a platform for civil discussion. I pledge to be civil; please let
me know if you believe I am acting otherwise.

I would
like to see my theories tested. Still, Venezuela, with a murder rate of at least 58 per 100,000 (this is
what the Venezuelan Govt admits to) and possibly nearing 1/100 ( that is 100 per 100,000) has a lot
of guns and very poor gun control. What are we to make of this?

Using your Wikipedia link on murder rate, we can also consider gun ownership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

Maybe we can also look at :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/gun-homicides-ownership/table/

comparing gun ownership with murder rate (murder by guns).

Among developed countries, US has the highest gun ownership rate, but still highest murder rate. OTOH, Switzerland has both high rate of gun ownership and low
murder rate.

Unfortunately, I have not found any site that has done any regression study between gun ownership and murder rate, and general rate of violent crime.
 
  • #21
WWGD said:
Jim, no problem, let's both enjoy the fact that PF provides/is a platform for civil discussion. I pledge to be civil; please let
me know if you believe I am acting otherwise.

Likewise.

Now that's an interesting table you linked at Washington post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/gun-homicides-ownership/table/

I think it needs one additional column, overall homicide rate per 100K people irrespective of implement used...
Let's just take the first two rows, US and India

WAPOpercapita.JPG


and add that column to it
US shows ~ 2/3 of homicides by gun, so ~ 1/3 are by other means.
What's overall homicide rate?

US: if 3.2 per 100K is 67.5% of homicides, then the overall homicide rate is 3.2/0.675 = 4.7 homicides per 100K people.
India: 0.26/0.076 = 3.4

adding that column to WaPo 's table gives

WAPONEWpercap.jpg


So 21X the gun ownership rate yielded just 1.4X the overall homicide rate.

Is my arithmetic valid ?

The correlation there is not number of guns to number of homicides , it's number of guns to method of homicides.
I suspect that article of spin, and observe how subtle...

and that's all the thinking i can do at one sitting.

EDIT maybe that new column should be called "imputed homicide rate" since it comes only from the figures in their own table ,
and "overall" gives no hint about how i arrived at it.
I do try to be meticulous in wording - but i am mighty slow...

old jim
 
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