The thinker of Caffeinated Politics, Gregory Humphrey, has posted another rant related to guns. I know there’s really nothing new when it comes to Humphrey and biased rants, I’ve covered some of them before, but this particular one is rather unique and is out in left field, way, Way, WAY out there.
Humphrey is trying his best to extrapolate the firearm data he presents to say that the State of Wisconsin legislature needs to do something to stop the flow of firearms from the state of Wisconsin to the murderous slaughtering streets of Chicagoland.
Humphrey writes, “In Chicago, most of the traced guns, about 16,500 of them, were bought from somewhere within Illinois, with about 8,200 more coming from Indiana. Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Mississippi, each being the source of fewer than 2,000 guns.”
Right off the bat we see that Humphrey is extrapolating something to absurdity because it’s not mathematically possible for each of the four sources to be less than 2,000 if the total of all four sources is 8,200, clearly something is incorrect in Humphrey’s extrapolations and I suppose it could be a significant rounding error somewhere in the data. Also, Humphrey is citing numbers as fact without properly citing a source containing those numbers (Journalism 101), at least I can’t find the data in the links he provided, links to data should be as specific as possible. That said, we’ll go ahead and use the data Humphrey presented in the following evaluation and we’ll intentionally use the larger of the numbers he presented.
[SEE UPDATE SECTION 1 BELOW]
Here is some basic information to use in some real math. For a moment let’s just say Humphrey’s 8,200 number above is equally divided between the four states, that means that 2,050 came from each of those states and, using the numbers Humphrey provided, the total is 24,700 based on the 16,500 + 8,200. So that means that 8.30% of firearms confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland in 2022 came from Wisconsin, 8.30%. There was an estimated total of 479,426 firearms sold in 2021 in the state of Wisconsin. Even though it’s really not a reasonable assumption to make, but for the sake of having numbers to use in this math let’s assume that all 2,050 of those firearms that came from Wisconsin and confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland were purchased legally in Wisconsin in the year 2021. Now here is the math: we have 479,426 firearms legally sold in the state of Wisconsin in 2021 and 2,050 of those firearms were confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland, so that means that 0.43% of the legally sold firearms sold in Wisconsin in 2021 were presumably used in some kind of crime and confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland.
[SEE UPDATE SECTION 2 BELOW]
Humphrey also presented some more data about 2019, he writes that “In 2019, of more than 11,000 guns confiscated by Illinois authorities, 460 were traced back to Wisconsin”. Again, Humphrey is citing numbers as fact without citing the source, at least I can’t find this data in the links he provided, links to data should be as specific as possible. True or not, that data calculates to 4.18% of the 11,000 came from Wisconsin, 4.18%.
Okay there’s the data. Now that we have some assumingly verifiable numbers and I intentionally used the larger numbers and there is some verifiable math, let me ask a simple question; since only about 0.43% (that’s less than one half of a percentage point which is statistically indistinguishable from zero) [SEE UPDATE SECTION 3 BELOW] of legally sold firearms in the State of Wisconsin end up presumably used in some kind of crime and being confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland, why do people like Humphrey use these statistics to say that the Wisconsin Legislature needs to do something when it clearly doesn’t statistically look like Wisconsin needs to do anything to change what it’s currently doing. Using data that’s statistically indistinguishable from zero to show the Wisconsin Legislature that they need to do something is delusional if not borderline insanity.
The crime problem clearly exists between the legal point of sale in Wisconsin and the streets of the 60624 zip code in Chicagoland. If there is illegal firearm trafficking happening after the legal point of sale in Wisconsin, then find the criminal traffickers and throw the damn book at them and lock them away for a very long time. We have existing laws to cover these kinds of things, enforce existing laws!
Humphrey also writes, “We need to re-examine the issues at play that allow for hundreds of guns to leave our state and cause injury and death. The reason is most obvious. While mayoral hopefuls will press the issue with voters about ways to stem gun violence in their city those who look in on the campaigns from this side of the Illinois border must share in the blame for not pressing our legislature to be more mindful of the harm guns crossing into Chicago are causing.“
Correlation equals causation?
So let me get this straight; Humphrey thinks that Wisconsinites (like him) should somehow “share in the blame” for the gun violence in Chicagoland because they haven’t pressed their state legislature to make new laws (because that’s what legislatures do) to stop the statistically indistinguishable from zero percentage flow of legally purchased firearms in the State of Wisconsin that end up being presumably used in some kind of crime and confiscated on the streets of Chicago? Share in the blame for crimes that they had absolutely nothing to do with; this is bias makes you stupid, as in box-o-rocks stupidity, kind of magical thinking?
What exactly does Humphrey think the State Legislature in Wisconsin should do to eliminate that statistically indistinguishable from zero percentage of legal firearm purchases that are crossing the state line and ending up being used in a crime, outlaw the sale and possession of any firearms in the State of Wisconsin entirely? Logic dictates that that is the only way to completely stop it.
Humphrey also writes, “A 2021 newspaper story about a gun dealer in Superior and a recovered weapon in Chicago is but one glaring example of why we must have tougher gun laws in our state, in this case with gun sellers.”
So in this Superior case, the gun store was broken into (illegal), gun display cases were destroyed and firearms stolen (illegal) and then put on the black market (illegal) and Humphrey thinks we must have tougher gun laws in our state including tougher gun laws for gun sellers. Wait a minute Humphrey, these criminals knowingly broke multiple laws when they stole the firearms from the dealer in Superior and put them on the black market and you seem to think that some new stricter laws are somehow going to deter them from their criminal behavior in the future; in my opinion, Humphrey’s is afflicted with a very special kind of biased stupidity.
Personally I think Humphrey has again allowed a bias makes you stupid mentality to control his thinking and he’s grasping at ridiculously illogical straws in this ridiculous attempt to blame Wisconsinites and shame them into doing something that will continue to strip away legal firearm owners of their Constitutional right and with this new attempt he’s completely devoid of critical thinking and logic, which has become all too typical of anti-gun advocates nation wide.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Benjamin Franklin
If Humphrey want’s to accept some personal blame for crime in Chicagoland that’s his choice, but if Humphrey thinks anyone else in the State of Wisconsin should accept any blame for the crimes in Chicagoland he’s fucking delusional. Here’s my personal response to Humphrey’s irrational “share in the blame” rant…
Over the years I’ve gotten the impression that Humphrey thinks of himself as some kind of thinking intellectual, well maybe next time Humphrey will react a bit less, set aside his obvious bias and critically think more before posting such ridiculous nonsense, after all, he’s the thinker of Caffeinated Politics.
[BEGINNING OF UPDATES
February 18, 2023
SECTION 1
I’m a man of integrity and I did my due diligence. After digging through hundreds of pages contained in all the PDF documents on the page that Humphrey linked to, I finally found the statistics that Humphrey was referring to when he wrote the paragraph I quoted above.
Note #1: After I found the statistics above I learned that I unfairly correlated what Humphrey wrote regarding the numbers in his statement, the “fewer than 2000 guns” was not part of the 8,200 gun number, the 8,200 number was just from the state of Indiana. I correlated where I shouldn’t have and I apologize for that. I retract my “Humphrey is extrapolating something to absurdity” statement. It’s really too bad Humphrey didn’t bother to take a couple of minutes out of his life to correct me on that simple error.
Note #2: According to the page that referenced above, this data is 2017-2021 which is five years inclusive.
SECTION 2
Using the revelation that the study Humphrey was referring to was over 5 years the calculated statistics I mentioned above change, DRAMATICALLY!
So if we take the actual number of 1,635 Wisconsin sourced firearms and divided that by 5 years we get an average of 327 firearms per year. Insert that into the calculation using the 2021 firearm sales number I presented above and use that number as an average gun sales per year for the 5 years, we get this: 479,426 firearms legally sold in the state of Wisconsin per year and 327 of those firearms were confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland, so that means that 0.068% of the legally firearms sold in Wisconsin in the years 2017-2021 and were presumably used in some kind of crime and confiscated on the streets of Chicagoland.
SECTION 3
This percentage is now 0.068% which is far less than one tenth of a percentage point.
SECTION 4
My conclusions do not change due to the updates, the same logic applies.]
Society's Building Blocks 
Figured you’d have an…um…opinion on that column, didn’t think the result would be as epic of a b!tchslapping as it was!
The Gotch’ll do Caffeinated Politics the favour of posting this there.
The Gotch
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Humphrey has no problem b!tchslapping conservatives on a regular basis, and unfairly at that IMO. He should be able to take some of what he dishes out.
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I see he deleted your comment, or am I missing something? Wouldn’t surprise me.
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It appears that Gregory Humphrey of Caffeinated Politics moderates all submitted comments and chooses which ones he allows the public to see. The choices Humphrey makes gives comment authors the impression that he’s intentionally censoring those that adamantly disagree with him. My impression is that he wants an echo chamber with only a couple of selectively chosen token opposing voices. Sure what he appears to be doing is unethical and cowardly but it is his blog and he can do anything his little heart desires with it.
Since Humphrey has banned me from commenting on his blog I’ve told him that he’s welcome to come here and post his adamant opposition to my blog posts as long as he follows my posted comment policies but he chooses to stay away.
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I agree with your assertion, especially the last paragraph.
He seems to see things strictly through his own bias, and it shows in his analyses. Like this from another post:
“While some conservatives are hell-bent on limiting exposure to the lives and experiences of people of color and LGBTQ+ people, it is important to know a move to counter the book banners is gaining traction.”
He makes it sound like books are being banned because Republicans are anti-gay. No, Republicans want to ban books from schools that are too explicit.
He also comes off as pompous IMO, which is opposite of what true intellectualism is about. In another post he wrote this: “I can speak to reading at a higher level than my peers from an early age.” Please.
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Welcome aboard InWisconsin.
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Thanks!
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What Steve said!
The Gotch
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Humphrey’s response to me was posted to his article but was then deleted:
“I have no problems with actual rebuttals, but as I noticed this morning in a linked comment from you…sorry for not seeing it last night…what was offered was factually wrong. I read Steve’s response and while not surprised, am perplexed as to why he took off after me for sloppy research or worse, it seems out-right-fabrication, when the very data he claims he could not locate was to be found inside the federal report that was linked. I source this type of data or quotes that are impactful for a reason, so that this type of behavior does not occur. (Plus I like people to read more on the topic at hand.) The very numbers he brow beats about is all over Chicago media over the past 72 hours. There is a reason Steve is not allowed on my page, and it has nothing to do with differing politics or philosophies. It has everything to do character. Or lack there of. This is not first time he has undertaken a tactic of this type.
“Here, then, is a WBBM Newsradio 780 news story where they used the same paragraph I did from the federal report. The same one that Steve could not locate, but still found it worthy to attack me, as opposed to the gun violence in Chicago. Differing on issues with a robust style is to be applauded, but cheap theatrics that are used to undermine the well-determined facts are not to be applauded. Thus, Steve’s link will not be allowed.
https://www.audacy.com/wbbm780/news/local/chicago-has-demonstrable-gun-trafficking-problem-report
The Gotch
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Thanks for sharing that “interesting” response Gotch.
It’s interesting how he writes at the end “Differing on issues with a robust style is to be applauded, but cheap theatrics that are used to undermine the well-determined facts are not to be applauded. Thus, Steve’s link will not be allowed.” Humphrey writes that I’m using cheap theatrics to undermine well-determined facts when I actually stated and used the facts he presented and more statistical facts to offer an opposing opinion; it takes a really biased moron holding a huge chip on his shoulder to conclude a response like that with a bald-faced lie. So it’s his opinion that using verifiable factual statistics is cheap theatrics and undermine facts when it shows that his conclusion is moronic, got it.
Humphrey wrote, “There is a reason Steve is not allowed on my page, and it has nothing to do with differing politics or philosophies. It has everything to do character. Or lack there of.” Based on what happened between him and I when he banned me, I think that’s a bald-faced lie and I saved the email correspondence and the blog commentary that show the real reasons he banned me; but hey, Humphrey can have any opinion of my character that he wants if it helps him sleep at night.
What Humphrey can’t have is his own facts.
Humphrey is simply full of shit when it comes to the links regarding the data he provided. The link he provided to the study links to a page that has 109 links to PDF documents with up to 55 pages in them and a couple of HTML pages. I clearly stated on my blog in multiple places that “Humphrey is citing numbers as fact without properly citing a source containing those numbers (Journalism 101), at least I can’t find the data in the links he provided, links to data should be as specific as possible.” What Humphrey should have done is to link directly to the specific PDF document or the webpage that contained the specific data he was referencing, he failed to properly provide the reader a reasonably adequate link to the data forcing the reader to wade through hundreds of pages divided between 109 different documents and web pages, that’s a fact, and he cannot deny that fact, period. He can rationalize and argue until we’re both blue in the face about citing properly but it doesn’t change the facts I just presented about his link and the facts that I presented in my blog post and I used HIS numbers in the calculations even though they weren’t properly cited.
Humphrey wrote in his email that “what was offered was factually wrong” but he doesn’t say what was wrong or how it was wrong.
Humphrey wrote in his email that I attacked him for “sloppy research or worse” which is a bald-faced misrepresentation of my words, I “attacked” him (Humphrey’s word not mine) about his poor citing of the data source not “sloppy research” and I don’t think his logic and conclusion is fair or reasonable and I think I made that perfectly clear in my blog post.
Once again, Humphrey is the one that’s actually engaging in out-right-fabrication when it comes to my words. He did the same thing in May of 2022 when he made up multiple lies to ban me.
Humphrey has been invited to comment on my blog to address what I write and that invitation stands; but in my opinion, Humphrey can’t hold his own in a real debate outside of his progressively leaning echo chamber and his actions and words have shown me that my opinion is correct.
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If you two are interested in what transpired when Humphrey banned me, here is a PDF document that contains the entire thing (full transparency), his blog post, all the comments, the two comments of mine that were deleted after he banned me, and the subsequent email thread with Humphrey after I was banned that included his reasons for banning me.
I know it’s long but it’s worth while to read it from top to bottom to get the full effect of the entire conversation.
Yes I obviously have an opinion about what transpired but make up your own minds based on the actual facts not on what I say or Humphrey says.
P.S. Here’s a link to the original blog on Caffeinated Politics.
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Interesting reading.
I personally wouldn’t bother with him. I haven’t met the man, but in my eyes, his writing is pretentious and I feel like I’m being talked down to.
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Exactly, and in a rather annoyingly passive-aggressive fashion.
The Gotch actually followed this as it occurred, and applaud Steve for sticking to his guns despite being double-teamed.
The Gotch
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Deleting comments? So much for “differing on issues with a robust style.”
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Humphrey seems to contradict himself in that reply to the Gotch, first he makes up a narrative that I’m not allowed to comment because of my lack of character (which is not why he said he banned me) and then he says a link to my blog in someone else’s comment (which is not a comment from me) won’t be allowed because I’m using cheap theatrics in my blog to undermine the well-determined facts. I’m literally offering a differing point of view that’s presented with a robust style and he’s literally making up stuff on the fly to try to justify what appears to be some kind of biased hate against me.
Personally I think his justification narratives are a literary pile of shit. I’m a man of integrity that’s forceful and sometimes blunt/harsh in presenting my opinions and he doesn’t appear to have the intellectual fortitude to contend with it. He sticks his neck out posting a public blog and then shuts down robust opposing points of view, sobeit.
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“sometimes blunt/harsh”
Heh! You don’t say…
The Gotch
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I had a few minutes so checked out his site this morning. Today he writes about Florida’s “book banning.”
Maybe if he had taken the time to investigate before spouting off, he’d know it was satire:
https://www.foxnews.com/media/snopes-declares-fake-florida-anti-woke-banned-book-list-satire-instead-admitting-false
He also writes about Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. There is no such thing. That’s made up by the Dems. What they are rightfully banning are books that discuss adult topics with children.
It’s hard to take him seriously. I wouldn’t sweat over being banned from his site.
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InWisconsin,
Yes Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law is a bald-faced lie that has been parroted by LGBT advocates for a while now even though they know that it’s been debunked, it’s a lie and they will continue to parrot it because it fits their smearing narrative and in their twisted imbicilic minds the ends justifies the means and they hope that people forget that their lies have been debunked. As Paul Joseph Goebbels the Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 said, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”.
However…
The satire list you linked to and the list that Humphrey linked to on his site are different. Here is a direct link to the list Humphrey is referring to.
InWisconsin, wrote, “What they are rightfully banning are books that discuss adult topics with children.”
Yes that’s what they’re trying to do but as usual it’s being twisted by the LGBT and Black activists to smear instead of actually discussing the issues related to the books and the age appropriateness of each book. Things like Playboy, Ku Klux Klan, Terrorism For Dummies, and 1619 shouldn’t be available to any age groups of children in public schools because it’s simply not age appropriate and it’s not appropriate for public schools to be sponsors of such things and, let’s face it, having such things in school libraries would be equivalent to sponsoring it. Yes I know those are extreme examples but there are much more benign examples of sexually related, racism related, violence related and CRT related publications that shouldn’t be in Elementary School Libraries or taught in classes and that is primarily what they are trying to deal with. Public Schools are NOT indoctrination camps and regardless of what some people want to advocate for, there are some things that are simply not age appropriate to discuss/teach in Public Schools especially in Elementary Schools and those that refuse to accept that fact have their heads completely buried where the sun doesn’t shine.
I’m going to be real honest; I don’t know the exact reasons any specific books were banned from Elementary School Libraries and I suspect that Humphrey doesn’t know either, but the problem with Humphrey is that he jumps on the bandwagon with almost anything that seems to support his hate filled bias. What should happen is to have a public discussion where We the People actively evaluate why each of these books were removed from Elementary School Libraries and not simply jump on the band wagon to smear that it happened. I suspect that Humphrey might actually agree with the reasons that some books were removed and disagree with reasons why other books were removed. What Humphrey appears to be doing is smearing this action as if these books are being banned at all libraries and book stores in the entire state preventing anyone in the state from reading them which would actually be a really bad thing to have happen.
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The Propagandist’s Purpose Is To Make One Set Of People Forget That Certain Other Sets Of People Are Human. A. Huxley
The Gotch
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There was a tragic shooting on a college campus where a gun loaded itself, grew a pair of legs, walked onto a college campus where it murdered and injured students. We should make it illegal for guns to grow legs, yup, that’ll solve the problem.
Let’s try some root cause analysis.
Root cause analysis (RCA) is the process of discovering the root causes of problems in order to identify appropriate solutions.
The root cause of problem we have are morally bankrupt criminally minded human beings justifying murdering others and the damn fools that choose to blame the tool the morally bankrupt human being use instead of the blaming the morally bankrupt human beings.
You can count on the irrational emotional troglodytes coming out of the woodwork to proclaim in a loud booming voice that something must be done about the guns in…
3….
2….
1….
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Humphrey at Caffeinated Politics didn’t disappoint, “We know that the way to stem gun violence… is to press ever harder and more firmly, louder and repeatedly for sanity in our legislative bodies.”, “…it is not moral for our legislative bodies not to act at once so to address what every mom and dad is talking about at the dinner table.
That’s the same do something argument that anti-gun advocates have used in the past but they can’t define specifically what that something is. Humphrey needs to set aside his emotional hysteria and demonization and tell us exactly what he wants the legislature to do that he thinks will stop these shootings? Humphrey needs to stop spouting emotional nonsense and start spouting specifics that will fix the problem and of course his proposals must ultimately pass Constitutional muster.
Humphrey is welcome to post his specific proposals to fix the problem here for everyone to discuss.
Humphrey also wrote, “It is not acceptable that anyone by the age of 20 should have suffered through two mass shootings anywhere in our nation.”
Climb down off your high horse Humphrey, no one is saying or implying that it is acceptable.
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Exactly. Like other anti-gun people, he spouts platitudes but offers nothing concrete in terms of policy or logistics.
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I just posted some updates to the blog post.
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