3787

Hmmm, yeah. Sorry. That’s lame of me. Should have checked sources a bit. Too many beers after dinner.

3788

Although this doesn’t help the chart, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people quoting only Union deaths when referring to the “US military” in the Civil War. I can’t find an example. I just remember it seemed petty even if it was technically true.

3789

This is the source of the statistics for that graph.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

As Tim James correctly guesses, they only cite Union deaths for the Civil War.

3790

That still doesn’t make sense though, as even with the outdated statistics for the union losses, you have 360k. Add in only WWII, and you are going to have 760k. And looking at that CRS report, that’s basically the numbers that are showing.

So even looking at the source they cite, the graph is way wrong.

And that’s ignoring the fact that for the purpose of this discussion is absurd to not count confederate deaths as American military losses.

3791

Actually, this one makes more sense as the primary source…

So the graph is probably battle deaths. Either way theres some truth stretching going on.

3792

“Here is America, we don’t count losers!” is what I would say if I were Donald Trump.

3793

So if they had changed “in war” to “in battle” the graphic would be right?

3794

It would be a lie by omission though.

For every three soldiers that died in combat in the American civil war, five died from disease.

3795

Yes, It’s actually more than that though.

First, it seemingly ignores the entirety of confederate deaths during the American civil war. Then, even soldiers who didn’t die in battle did die directly from the aftermath of battle, from things like infection of battle wounds.

3796

It doesn’t ignore confederate battle deaths :). If you use battle deaths and include the confederate you get that number.

I’m saying this, because even if the graph would be lying by omission (if it was labelled battle deaths) it is not lying in the underlying message. Even counting ALL war deaths, you get a number that is comparable to other gun related deaths in just 25 years. Questioning the numbers does not diminish the validity of the point being made.

Even 1.2 million deaths in war in all American history does compare to 800k gun-related deaths in just 25 years, in exactly the same sobering way the graph shows, even if the bars change.

3797

All the same waste of life to me.

3798

Well, but those numbers aren’t actually correct though. For instance, the modern take on total deaths from the civil war, based on the source I provided previously, was around 750 thousand. That source from the VA isn’t really authoritative in this regard.

I mean, if the message is just that lots of folks die by gun violence, then sure, that’s certainly the case. Because you have a huge population compared to those involved in most of those wars.

3799

I’m assuming the gun related deaths stat on that graph includes suicides via firearms too? Not just homicides? If so, that number is slightly less dramatic than it looks like. For example (from Wikipedia) in 2013 there were almost twice as many suicides by firearm as there were homicides by firearm. If they’re only including soldiers killed in battle, I’d be interested in a graph that shows only firearm related homicides. I’m also now kind of curious to see if there is any information on suicides vs level of gun control.

Edit: some quick Google’ing brought this up: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-ownership-and-use/ Basically listing different studies suggesting that more firearms in a state means higher rates of suicide and in particular higher rates of suicide by firearm.

3800

Indeed.

By counting only ‘battlefield’ deaths, you ignore the true cost of the war - and as you note, you miss those who were injured in combat and died subsequently.

Given the phrasing, I would assume so.

3801

I guess we’re being a little unfair on the graph really. We’re picking it to pieces but we are seeing it out of context. In its original setting, its stated that its a graph of US combat deaths vs all other gun related deaths (murders/accidents/suicides).

3802

You can’t take issue with the paper the data is drawn from, but the graph that CAP put together - it’s misleading. It suggests something that isn’t true through the use of ‘cute’ definitions.

3803

It is a strange definition, but the US Military deaths. The confederates didnt believe themselves to be part oc the United States at the time, nor were they part of the United States Military.
I would assume that the chart does not count the US citizens that ran off and joined ISIL or or Taliban and died. They have as much claim to be on the chart as the members of the confederate soldiers.

3804

The graph uses both Confederate and Union deaths to reach the number. But it only counts battle deaths but doesn’t include non-battle deaths (infections from injuries sustained in battle and sickness unrelated to battle, but not to war itself).

Just changing the wording to battle deaths the graph becomes accurate, since it seems from quick reading of Timex’s link and a couple other followups that battle deaths in the ACW were not revised upwards, since they are better documented, the upwards revision is mainly weighted on non-battlefield/total deaths.

3805

And to be somewhat fair, the graph is trying to compare gunshot-deaths in war to gunshot-deaths in peacetime. It’s not too disingenuous to take out war deaths caused by smallpox and diarrhea… though to remove deaths that were caused by complications due to gunshots certainly is a bit fishy.

3806

Fair enough. Gun control advocates have always been obsessed with gun-specific violence and death. The US-centric numbers are somewhat amusing though. God only knows how many people we shot and killed from 1776 to 2015, to say nothing about other weapons or total war policy.

Hey, maybe it’s a chart about how our military has far better tactics than the average civilian, including the ability to defend themselves! Moar gunz lol