Biden Says Over 150 Million Americans Killed By Gun Violence Since 2007, Which Would Be Half Of U.S.

[USALiberal]

https://www.newsweek.com/biden-says-over-150-million-americans-killed-gun-violence-since-2007-which-would-third-us-1489115

While discussing gun control during Tuesday's Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, former Vice President Joe Biden misquoted statistics about how many Americans had been killed by gun violence since 2007.

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"150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability," Biden added. "More than all the wars including Vietnam from that point on."

Data from the National Archives indicates that 58,220 U.S. soldiers were killed during the Vietnam War. Roughly over 7,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in action during military actions in the Middle East, according to the Department of Defense.

With the U.S. Census Bureau reporting a population of 327.2 million people in the country in 2018, Biden's figure would equate to approximately one half of the current U.S. population being killed by gun violence since 2007.

[Cal Carpenter]

1. Meh, everyone misspeaks sometimes

Some of these 'gotcha' things are just dumb.

[PatSeg]

2. I agree

Best to stay with really pertinent issues.

[H2O Man]

3. I agree.

[mcar]

4. It's a long campaign

They all get tired. Even the youngest, Mayor Pete, is under the weather.

They all deserve a bit of slack.

[BusyBeingBest]

5. It's a gotcha if he was asked the statistic.

He came prepared with it. Just wrong.

[OhZone]

6. CAPS LOCK means it's

Cereal!1!!!!!

[USALiberal]

7. Newsweek did the caps, complain to them! Nt

[TwilightZone]

10. Or you could spend five seconds fixing it.

Browser plugins exist to proper case text. It takes literally five seconds.

Example: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/change-case/lpakoahdokkkonadfppfgmednkknpgbm?hl=en

[David__77]

8. These things happen.

...

[Hassler]

9. Maybe it's strategy? Reagan said all kinds of crazy stuff and it worked for him. Twice.

[NoMoreRepugs]

11. In other news VP Biden once seen not covering his

mouth when sneezing!!

[George II]

14. I hear he forgot to wipe once, too!

[Glimmer of Hope]

12. These things happen. He is no dotard.

[George II]

13. A takeoff of Biden's comments about the ACA, this is NOT a "big fucking deal". What else you got?

[uponit7771]

15. Really ?

[BilltheCat]

16. Caps locks? Seriously??

[USALiberal]

20. Cut and pasted from Newsweek. Nt

[Turbineguy]

17. All of the candidates are working long hours.

[W_HAMILTON]

18. He meant 150 thousand.

https://gun-control.procon.org/us-gun-deaths-by-year/

From 2007 to 2016 (latest year available), there were ~120k homicides by gun; this is an average of ~12k/year. Add ~12k for each year from 2017 to 2019 to that ~120k total and you get ~156k homicides by gun since 2007 when Sanders voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability.

He obviously misspoke, but people make mistakes like that all the time. It's one reason I'm in favor of not reciting specific numbers and things like that in debates because it doesn't really serve a purpose and people are prone to make a mistake like this, which only serves to detract from the point at hand. Just say more Americans have been killed by guns here in America since 2007 when Sanders voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability than in every war combined since Vietnam. It makes the (correct) point without confusing the message with an unnecessary specific number.

[USALiberal]

19. Thanks for info! Nt

[Blue_true]

21. His campaign said that he misspoke. A non issue, move on. nt