A bogus study is floating around stating that guns are responsible for the mass slaughtering of children and the gun control zealots in the left-wing media are more than happy to promote it.
The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), states that data from 2002-2014 suggest that 19 children a day die or are wounded from guns, which results in almost 1,300 gun deaths and 5,790 wounded per year.
Of those gun deaths, 53% were homicides, 38% were suicides and 6% were accidental deaths. Homicides have declined by 36% from 2007-2014 while suicides have increased by 60% since 2007.
If one were to look at these numbers at face value, it creates the impression that children are dying en masse from guns. The media are obliging, as evident by these headlines:
- ABC: Shootings kill or injure at least 19 US children each day.
- CBS: Study reveals “staggering” toll of guns on U.S. kids.
The CBS report also quotes an assistant professor of pediatrics, Dr. Ruth Abaya, as stating, “Their numbers verified a lot of observations we’ve seen in regards to gun violence, gun death and unintentional injury to children over the years. It was very telling.” She also added “that we’re going to need a multi-pronged approach to gun violence prevention in this country for it to be affective.”
Here’s the problem: the CDC defines “children” as those 17 or younger, which is disingenuous because, as National Review‘s Charles Cooke points out, “most of us don’t see 16- or 17-year-olds as ‘children,’ and that’s where the deaths are overwhelmingly concentrated.” Cooke also produced the CDC data that proves his point, with the death rates being measured in per 100,000 people:
As seen above, the death rate for small children is actually relatively low compared those who are 16 and 17 years old. In fact, according to Cooke, “Kids ten and under are more than three times as likely to drown as to die from a gunshot (accidental or otherwise), for example, and more than four times as likely to die in a car accident.” The real problem then appears to be violence among those who are 16 and 17 years old, as Dana Loesch pointed out:
Obviously, every gun death, particularly that of a child, is one too many. But the notion that small children are being slaughtered in hordes due to guns is fake news.