Conservative Twitter gets angry when Neil deGrasse Tyson tweets out gun statistics

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an incredibly popular Twitter user and often offends conservatives with his beliefs on religion and evolution. Imagine how they felt when he tweeted gun statistics this past Monday.

According to Tyson, the number Americans killed by terrorism since 2001 is equal to the number of Americans killed by household firearms in just five weeks — a disturbing statistic which did not sit well with gun advocates.

Most of the responses simply tried to draw attention away from the gun statistics, and point to other fatality numbers that were higher than Tyson’s statistics. One user shared a picture that compared automatic rifle deaths to medical malpractice cases, concluding that you are more likely to die from Obamacare than a gun.

Many of the statistics posted were cherry-picked and misleading, and cited shady statistics that only looked at deaths from a certain type of gun — some only used the number of shotgun deaths, while totally ignoring deaths caused by handguns, which are by far the most prevalent. One of the most repeated statistics is that “hammers kill more than guns,” a statement that is easily debunked.

Tyson tweeted two more gun violence comparisons in addition to terrorism comparison:

Featured image via Flickr

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