I wonder if their metric is valid

In France they claim the situation is improving because:

Police said 463 vehicles were set ablaze across France, a slight fall from the previous night, but the number of vehicles torched in the areas around Paris rose from 84 to 111.

 “This confirms the downward trend overall, with some resistance in the Paris region,” national police chief Michel Gaudin told reporters. “This weekend we will exercise extra vigilance in the Paris region.”

Using that measurement they also could claim the riots are over when there are no cars left to burn.  Sort of like celebrating the end of the genocide in Darfur (via Clayton Cramer):

As my friend Johann Hari put it recently in the London Independent: “At last, some good news from Darfur: the genocide in western Sudan is nearly over. There’s only one problem—it’s drawing to an end only because there are no black people left to cleanse or kill.”

The same thing happens with the anti-gun bigots.  They celebrate when fewer people are killed or injured using guns but the murder rate went up.  And to top it off they almost always include justified and praiseworthy homicides and injuries on the negative side of their gun usage equations.

One shouldn’t be surprised.  It’s human nature to find reasons to believe what you want to believe.  It’s the job of scientists to encourage them to face reality.  I’m a scientist.  So you should believe me.  😉

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