In previous installments, we’ve examined what we call The Chicago Gambit, which is cherry picking statistics to make the case that stricter gun laws cause a rise in crime, as well as its counterpart, which we call The D.C. Gambit — which is cherry picking data to argue that looser gun laws cause a drop in crime. Now let’s look at a tactic that allows the gun propagandist to do both simultaneously.

3: The Comparison Gambit

Chances are at some point you’ve seen an Internet meme like this one:

Since (as the perpetrators of this propaganda would have you believe) there are no major differences between Chicago and Houston besides climate and gun policy, then the latter must be responsible for the difference in crime.

First of all, the figures listed in this chart aren’t exactly accurate. In fact, some of them are way off. Most glaringly, Chicago experienced about 500 homicides in 2012, not 806. By the way, the figures listed in the table vary considerably from version to version of this meme, as if those circulating it just alter them willy-nilly without bothering with even a modicum of research. One version slyly inserts a 1 before the 806, making 1806 homicides in all!

But as incredible as it may sound, statistical inaccuracy is not the main problem of this and other items like it. The main problem is false equivalence. Even if we take the “facts” listed at face value, there are some stark problems.

First, there is a substantial difference in population between these two cities — Chicago has about 25 percent more residents. And those are just the people living within the city limits. Both cities are part of sprawling metropolitan communities that don’t end where city boundaries do. The population of Houston and environs is 5.6 million, while that of Chicagoland is about 10 million — almost double. Furthermore, the Houston metropolitan area is more centrally placed in the state, and surrounded by more sparsely populated communities. Chicagoland is the heart of an urban sprawl extending into 3 states, with great variation in gun policy — including deep-red, gun-totin’ Indiana.

There is, in other words, a big difference in population density. Chicago’s, at about 11,800 inhabitants per square mile, is more than 3 times that of Houston’s at some 3500 per square mile. Could this be a contributing factor? Quite possibly.

And even the above table acknowledges that there are variations in ethnic composition. Chicago, for instance, is listed as 38.9 percent African-American, as opposed to 24 percent for Houston. Does this suggest that blacks are more violent? Not so fast: Chicago is also listed as 38.7 percent Caucasian, as opposed to Houston’s 26 percent. And it also doesn’t do much for gun culture visions of ethnic superiority that the supposedly much safer Houston has a larger percentage of Hispanics. Still, it’s possible that ethnicity — perhaps in conjunction with other factors — does indeed contribute somehow.

The meme even mentions, albeit facetiously, that climate could play a role. No, there’s no reason to believe that cold weather in itself makes people more violent, but it might make a contribution under certain circumstances. In other words, as far-fetched as it might sound, while cold weather in general does not make people more violent, it might do so in Chicago specifically. At least that possibility can’t be ruled out. And that’s just the point: there are a great many factors, known and unknown, that can’t be ruled out; but those who disseminate this chunk of propaganda focus on only those factors that seem to buttress their cause.

The meme also fails to mention that 2012 was an unusually high year for homicides in Chicago; or that violent crime, as well as crime in general, have been steadily declining in the city. Or that the homicide rate for the past dozen years or so has been substantially lower than it was previously. (The average since 2004 has been around 450 per year.) Or that the 2012 spike in homicides occurred two years after a certain Supreme Court ruling that supposedly restored “constitutional gun rights” to Chicagoans.

The moral of the story is that there is more to life than guns. But as long as we’re playing the comparison game, let’s try two more cities, shall we? How about… oh, Boston and New Orleans.

New Orleans has about 380,000 people, while Boston has about 650,000. That’s a difference of about 70 percent. So, all else being equal, we’d expect Boston to have about 70 percent more homicides and 70 percent more crime than New Orleans, right?

But of course, all is not equal. Massachusetts has very strict gun laws, and Louisiana has very lax gun laws. So then if the “more guns, less crime” folks are correct, then Boston should have way, way more violence, right? But that’s, er, not quite how things are.

New Orleans has the seventh highest homicide rate in the nation, with a homicide rate last year of 42.7, compared to Boston’s 6.1. In 2014, Boston’s overall violent crime rate was 725.7, compared to 973.9 in New Orleans. The property crime rate for Boston was 2,638.9 with a burglary rate of 409.5; for New Orleans these figures were 4,231.8 and 893.3.

You can cherry pick statistics to “prove” just about anything. But to get a more accurate picture of an overall trend, you need to examine as broad a spectrum as possible. Comparing a large number of cities is more reliable than comparing just two, and comparing states is more reliable still. And when you d0 a comprehensive comparison of gun laws with gun deaths across the states, you see that stricter gun laws clearly correspond to fewer gun deaths. That doesn’t prove that “gun control” works, but it goes a long way toward discrediting the contrary belief.