As a political issue, crime is back.
Between the uproar over police shootings in Minneapolis and other cities, the demands by activists to “defund the police,” and a spreading “blue flu” pandemic that seeing veteran police officers walk off the job – in some cases not to return – crime in America is on the rise. Even if the national political media hasn’t yet caught on.
But they will. It’s inevitable because few issues hit home as closely as personal safety does. What drives many BLM adherents into the streets to protest police shootings is not just the sense, amplified by the media coverage, that they aren’t safe in their neighborhoods but that the biggest threat comes from the very people who are supposed to protect them.
It turns out, a new poll says, that your sentiments on the issue are influenced considerably by which television news network you watch. “Fewer than 50 unarmed black suspects were killed by police last year and more people were killed with knives than with so-called ‘assault weapons,’,” the polling firm Rasmussen Reports said Friday, “but viewers of MSNBC and CNN are far more likely than Fox News viewers to get those facts wrong.”
The firm found 50 percent of likely U.S. voters who identified CNN or MSNBC as “their favorite cable news outlet” believed the number of unarmed African Americans who were fatally shot by police in 2020 exceeded 100. “By contrast, only 22 percent of Fox News viewers believe police shot more than 100 unarmed black people last year.”
The poll, found just about one in four of CNN viewers and one-in-five MSNBC viewers thought cops “fatally shot more than 500 unarmed black suspects last year” while only one in ten Fox viewers thought the same thing.
“Fox News viewers (60 percent) were about three times more likely than viewers of MSNBC (19 percent) or CNN (23 percent) to correctly estimate the number of unarmed black people shot and killed by police in 2020 as less than 50. Sixty percent (60 percent) of talk radio listeners also estimated the number correctly,” the firm said the data collected showed.
Each year about 1,500 U.S. homicides annually are committed with knives and fewer than 500 are committed with rifles. However, 30 percent of likely voters thought the number of annual homicides involving rifles was more than 500, including 18 percent who said they believed it was more than 1,000 homicides, Rasmussen Reports said.
“Thirty percent of MSNBC viewers correctly estimated the number of homicides committed with rifles as between 100 and 500, as did 22 percent of CNN viewers and 19 percent of Fox News viewers. However, while 63 percent of Fox viewers underestimated the number of killings with rifles as less than 100, viewers of CNN and MSNBC were more likely to overestimate the number of homicides committed with rifles. Forty-three percent of CNN viewers and 40 percent of MSNBC viewers believe rifles are used in more than 500 homicides annually, compared to just 19 percent of Fox News viewers. Only 26 percent of talk radio listeners overestimated the number of homicides committed with rifles.”
The survey of 2,000 U.S. likely voters was conducted on April 29-May 3, 2021 by the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence. To see survey question wording, click here.)
Peter Roff is a former U.S. News & World Report contributing editor now affiliated with several Washington, D.C. public policy organizations. He appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network. Reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.
Peter Roff
Peter Roff is affiliated with several Washington, D.C. public policy organizations and is a former U.S. News and World Report contributing editor who appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.
The commiecrats don’t count acts committed by the antifa thugs and BLM to be crimes
I dunno. Our neighborhood is so tough, we have two pigeons in our rafters building their nest with Kevlar.
Lol
Commiecrats are CATHOLIC. antifa is CATHOLIC. Biden is CATHOLIC Pelosi is CATHOLIC Cuomo is CATHOLIC deblasio is CATHOLIC. Kerry is CATHOLIC. A hundred nations a thousand years and exactly 100% failure.
Biden calling himself a good Catholic is like a White man believing he’s Black
There are no ‘good’ Catholics. NO CATHOLIC “C” is an American…. ALL Catholics are traitors…. There are two sides to a coin, heads, tails. There is The USA OR the Vatican…. The Constitution OR the bi-babble… the President of the USA OR the pooopie…. .. they are opposite and not compatible… ALL CATHOLICS make the CHOICE of being an American OR a CATHOLIC TRAITOR supporting the Vatican, a foreign, hostile NATION that destroys all nations it touches. /..R and D mean nothing. .. ..The smoke screen continues and continues. Political correct will get us all killed. they are ILLEGAL ALIEN CATHOLIC “C” INVADERS. Vote for ANY CATHOLIC and you vote for a traitor. The Vatican is a foreign hostile NATION which is at undeclared perpetual war with all other nations. Be Catholic or be dead.
Alfie you have your religions mixed up. It’s Muslims who have declared convert or we will kill you.and they do jihad to kill non Muslims. You are very uuneducated in politics or religion. A real dumb ass.
You back again ASSHOLE??? YOU ARE CLUELESS!!! I’M A DISABLED VETERAN AND I AM A CATHOLIC, AND YOUR MESSAGES ARE CRAP!!! I WOULD LOVE TO MEET UP WITH YOU, EVEN WITH A BULLET STILL IN MY BACK, I WOULD CLEAN THE FLOOR WITH YOU!!! YOU SUCK BRO!!!
Alfie is hung up on Catholics. Here’s a Catholic joke. A very old nun went to her doctor thinking she had a yeast infection. The doctor examined her and told her that she had fruit flies. Her cherry was rotten.
Michael…you speak for me, too! I’m TIRED of this pervert! I’m 73, and also a veteran. And also a Catholic! I’d like a crack at “it”, too!
Too bad you are not an AMERICAN! You belong to the Vatican, a foreign, hostile NATION that is at perpetual undeclared war with all nations. You cannot have two masters, you are of the traitor side.
NO CATHOLIC “C” is an American…. ALL Catholics are traitors…. There are two sides to a coin, heads, tails. There is The USA OR the Vatican…. The Constitution OR the bi-babble… the President of the USA OR the pooopie…. .. they are opposite and not compatible… ALL CATHOLICS make the CHOICE of being an American OR a CATHOLIC TRAITOR supporting the Vatican, a foreign, hostile NATION that destroys all nations it touches. /..R and D mean nothing. .. ..The smoke screen continues and continues. Political correct will get us all killed. they are ILLEGAL ALIEN CATHOLIC “C” INVADERS. Vote for ANY CATHOLIC and you vote for a traitor. The Vatican is a foreign hostile NATION which is at undeclared perpetual war with all other nations. Be Catholic or be dead.
WHEN did you ESCAPE from the ASYLUM? You ASS-WIPE!
The CATHOLIC traitors come in all sizes shapes, colors and FAILURE. They stress the ‘color’ or whatever, and sidestep the THOUSAND YEARS OF 100% FAILURE…
if their mouth is moving you know their lying
I have found NewsMax.com and found them more believable than the so called fake news
The only good thing I can say about cnn and msnbc, oh I don’t get either of those loser channels , their a bunch of low life scum sucking losers!
The Swamp News rats , MSM=Fake News (CNN, FOX, CBS, MSNBC.etc)The Pravda/Racists Divisive Commie news and their propaganda HATE machine at full throttle! They are destroying the country within! Expose, Boycott, Sue, prosecute and bring to justice all these lying Fake News Social media(Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.etc)