In further evidence of Americans’ waning attention spans, the once annual ritual of gun control activists and their media lackeys manipulating CDC fatal injury data to push a misleading factoid about children and firearms has become semiannual.
This is how it works: Step one, acquire statistics on firearm-related deaths among children ages 0-14. Step two, combine that relatively low number with the far greater number of firearm-related deaths involving juveniles and young adults ages 15-19, or even ages 15-24. Step three, present the resulting data as the shocking number of “children” (ages 0-19 or 0-24) who are subjected to “gun violence” each day/week/month/year. Step four, use the disingenuous statistic to advocate for pre-determined gun control policies.
Back in March, gun controllers dredged up this tactic once again, using CDC’s 2021 fatal injury data. As with overall violent crime, firearm-related violence has been elevated in recent years, alongside the conscious implementation of soft-on-crime criminal justice policies. Sadly, younger people were no exception to this increase.
On March 29, 2023 CNN ran an article with the misleading headline, “Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else.”
As this CNN article discussed “children and teens,” consider the data on children – ages 0-12. For this cohort, firearm-related injuries are not the leading causes of death and are not higher than motor vehicle deaths. The number of motor vehicle deaths in this age group is more than double that of firearms-related deaths. The number of motor vehicle deaths in the 0-14 age group is more than 50-percent higher than firearm-related deaths. Moreover, when examining the cohort ages 0-17, motor vehicle deaths are still higher than firearm-related deaths.
This shifts when examining the cohort ages 15 to 19. Over 80-percent of the firearm-related deaths that occur in the 0-19 age group happen among the juveniles and young adults ages 15-19. This disparity shouldn’t be surprising.
The 15 to 19 cohort is far more often engaged in the type of street crime that can give rise to firearm-related violence and that many jurisdictions have decided to address in a more lenient manner in recent years. The conflation of this age group with young children is even more absurd when one considers that in the vast majority of jurisdictions those 15 and older can be prosecuted as adults.
Guns are the #1 killer of kids in America.
Not cancer. Not car crashes. Not drugs.
GUNS.
And what is the @GOP doing about it? Absolutely nothing. https://t.co/tEk8dEPr8v
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 25, 2023
Evidently one round of misleading headlines each year isn’t enough.
Last week the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics published a paper titled, “Trends and Disparities in Firearm Deaths Among Children.” The paper examined the same 2021 CDC fatal injury data referenced above. Despite the headline, the very first line of the paper acknowledged that the item concerns “children and adolescents.” However, the paper goes on to conflate children and adolescents at various points, later including even 18 and 19-year-olds under the definition of “children.”
The results were predictable.
The same day the study was published online, United Press International ran an article titled, “Gun deaths surge, become leading cause of death for U.S. children.” ‘Today’ published a piece with the headline, “Gun violence is leading cause of death for US children and teens, study finds.”
As all these items are based on the same 2021 CDC fatal injury data, they are misleading in the same manner as the March CNN article. Simply put, firearms are not the leading cause of death among children – even under the most expansive definition of the term (ages 0-17).
The next time you see a shocking headline about children and firearms, keep in mind how those pushing a political agenda have no interest in the truth.
This article originally appeared at NRA-ILA and is reprinted here with permission.
Would they rather have them jump out of windows?….
I wonder if there are other demographic axis that you could break down the 15-19 cohort by that would shed even more light on this story.
I wonder at what position were drowning deaths.
Perhaps by ethnicity? Urban, suburban or rural?
SC,
Especially toddlers and 5 gallon buckets…
If your child has a beard, mustache, tats and drives home at 3AM smelling like cheap liquor and cigarettes they may be an adult.
You’ve met my sister?
Are you telling me or asking me?
Your sister sounds kinda hot, Man. Is she single? 😉
Your sister is a Trans male-to-female wannabe?
Geoff — her girlfriend says no.
.40 cal — it’s a grooming issue.
🤣
And, why is it the very *best* police body-cam videos start the same way?
Cop – “You’re under arrest.”
Drunk Girl – “No, I’m not.”
Followed by, pleading, begging, insulting, fighting, kicking, and spitting? 😉
I know way more kids that were killed in auto accidents then by gunms.
I know my experience is just a small sample however the fact remains the same.
I bet most people either know someone, or know someone who knows someone who died of an OD. I personally know more than one. The pols keep ramping up conditions for more ODs. The firearm topic is a convenient excuse for them to ignore other, more pressing issues.
Cars, Guns, and Drugs don’t kill people. They all require human interaction to harm or kill. Liberals/Progressives have abandoned the idea of personal responsibility. As a means to control what they want to allow or disallow in society. It’s ironic how well, ‘We the People have allowed them to control our society. Without suffering any consequences for the destruction they have perpetrated on it.
“Without suffering any consequences for the destruction they have perpetrated on it.”
Don’t worry about that, they will suffer the consequences for it.
@.40 cal Booger. By who your imaginary friend?
“@.40 cal Booger. By who your imaginary friend?”
Don’t worry about who or what or how, they will suffer the consequences for it and its already under way.
Often they will not count infants up to one year, so the age range is 1-19 yrs. because the death rate 0-1 year old is quite high due to congenital defects, etc.
Newsom said, “What is the GOP doing about it? Absolutely nothing.”
Very convenient to ignore all the concessions the RINOs and weak Repubs have given to the gun control crowd over the years. If you ask a Patriot POTG, he’d likely say the GOP has done quite a bit helping Newsom and his ilk weaken our right to bear arms. Quite a bit, indeed.
Newsom’s a greasy politician and professional liar. Just like his aunt.
Cars are far more appalling than guns.
Countless *BILLIONS* have been spent explicitly engineering them *not* to kill, yet they kill tens of thousands annually.
A tiny fraction of all guns made kill annually, while a drastically larger percentage of motor vehicles kill with impunity.
Car control NOW!
That most fault prone component:
The nut behind the wheel.
I have always said the best thing that can happen for the country is when politicians aren’t allowed to do anything. Regardless of party.
NOTICE BELOW IT SAYS “AGE ADJUSTED DATA which completely refutes the T Tag article.
The switchover, which happened in 2017, stems from both a reduction in vehicle-related deaths and a grim uptick in gun-related fatalities. From 2000 to 2020, the number of firearm-related deaths in the one-to-24-year-old age group increased from 7.3 per 100,000 people to 10.28 per 100,000, age-adjusted data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal. During the same period, motor-vehicle-related deaths declined from 13.62 to 8.31 per 100,000.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/guns-now-kill-more-children-and-young-adults-than-car-crashes/
Let’s ask Eddie Bernays what matters more: facts or repeated messaging on all the idiot screens by popular people.
Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.
A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.
Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated
are confident they are acting on their own free will.
There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be “the man in the street.” Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.
Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.
These are all quotes of the greatest master manipulator and the father of indoctrination of the public. Through the use of the press and education system. Joseph Goebbels. From whom the leaders of the Liberal Democrats have crafted their playbook, to their idea of the transformative society. The society that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have spoke of about on numerous occasions.
The reason things are quickly going to hell in a handbasket is because we have a politically corrupt mass media that is not only allowing it but also assisting it.
The WW2 Nazis were simply plagerists stealing their Propaganda techniques from an American Jew named Edward Bernays. Bernays published the first version of Propaganda in 1910, and later wrote a revised version in 1928! Bitter irony isnt it?
Firearms NOT Leading Cause of Death Children and it’s not even CLOSE!
Huh. And here all this time, I thought abortion was the most frequent cause of death among children. Second to leftist ideology in general over the years, of course.
Well, those were not considered real children, Hawkeye, so that does not count. “My Body, My Choice”, remember? They only counts when the politicians are trying to score political points. Such as with gun control, for instance.
Sneaky drama queens wallowing around in an agenda History Confirms is Rooted in Racism and Genocide use children as stage props to advance Gun Control…Yes they are that despicable and much more.
its actually kinda nice
living when we do right now
with the knowledge
that the left always lies about everything
so we dont have to waste
any of our precious time or energy anymore
fact checking them
or researching the topic
If you want to live in a free country, you must accept that freedom means more risky behavior. Those who think less freedom means more safety are horribly mistaken. Those willing to give their freedoms for security will end up with neither and deserve neither.
How very true, SeenTooMuch. Sadly, this country is full of people who have had it too good for too long, and have no clue as to what it is like to live in a country with neither. Except for the one who had commented on my post (via another thread) who had been in the military and had seen it with his eyes. The romantic view of what Americans read in books and see in movies is one thing. Reality is entirely another. Forget guns killing more children. Wait until you lose your right, live under Communism (or some other oppressive system), and your children (or friends & family members) are used against you to keep you in line, or even haul you off to a Gulag somewhere to be worked to death or killed. Caring for/about the children indeed, they are just a tool, just like Americans are today. They are merely a means to an end for corrupt politicians who could not care less about them.
As the quote goes, Joe:
Hard times make for Strong Men.
Strong men make for good times.
Good times make for weak men.
Weak men make for hard times.
Thank you for the quote reminder, Stuck, and how very true. It also reminded me of this one from Victor Hugo: “Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters”.
The 2nd Amendment is the foundation that all of the other rights in our Constitution rest on. Without that foundation, all other rights are vulnerable to removal. The more power that you give to the government, the less freedom you will have.
Seems our Leftist cadre have neglected to comment here. I wonder why? Well, not really.
Funny how only the authorized, trained and vetted are supposed to have firearms, but the next news story will be about how government agents have committed some crime, or some government has committed mass murder of unarmed, defenseless citizens of their or their neighboring countries citizens.
Another strange issue is somehow 17 through 24 year olds are considered children to support an anti freedom, authoritarian agenda, but those same people are considered as mature adults to promote some strange perversions or other popular amongst the Progressives agendas.
It would be nice if the idiots would pick a set age to be considered as age of majority and after which you are no longer considered as a child/minor.
If someone is considered mature enough to vote, serve on a jury, enlist in the military, sign contracts and arrange loans etc. they should also be considered mature enough to have children/raise a family, pay for their own bills/expenses, own firearms, and purchase adult substances.
“those same people are considered as mature adults to promote some strange perversions [and Progressive delusions]”
You mean 8-year olds.
Just out: 1600 scientists sign a statement that climate change is not as dangerous as the “Sky is Falling” politicians and so-called climatologists claim. Check it out! Now the government is going to mandate that everyone be vaccinated with a new COVID-19 vaccine. How much more of this are we willing to put up with?
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/environment/more-1600-scientists-including-nobel-laureates-declare-climate-crisis
Man with no aim, I’m glad to see someone’s on the ball. Way to go!
I’m a habitual linker. I checked WattsUpWithThat but didn’t find the story there, yet.
I’d use that link in a discussion on Nextdoor but they suspended my account yesterday. Apparently the truth hurts some people’s feewings.
In order to set up a tyranny, there needs to be some sort of big problem that people can be rallied behind so strong government restrictions can be imposed to solve the problem. Mankind-caused climate change is a big lie that will be used to bring about tyranny. Climate change is nothing new. What’s new is the big lie that man can control climate.
BINGO!!!
Reminds me of a reprint of a cartoon from the 1930 era where a law student is asking the professor with words to this effect:
‘Why do we have so many complicated laws? It’s almost impossible to NOT to be breaking some law, somewhere..’
To which the professors’ reply is ‘If the populace isn’t breaking a law, there is no way of legally controlling them.’
I forget the exact quotes, and I’ve also seen it mentioned on other threads here as well..
Personally I cannot see a pOLITICAL CONNECTION between LEFT WING POLITICS and Gun Controls. It’s all a figment of political immaginings. Wanting closer control over both the availability and usage of FIREARMS has absolutely NOTHING to do with political persuasion Any way the AVERAGE American has absolute no bloody idea as LEFT WING politics is – to them it’s anytghiong that does not share their World View.
For the ignorant and stuopid there is a LOT of waht can be described as SOCIALIST or LEFT Wing systems in the USA,These include Public Works, Emergency Relief FOOD PROGRAMS, Education, State Pensions. Unemployment Benefits In fact ANYTHING that includes an element of STATE or FEDERAL Funding All have their roots in SOCIALIST thought. FDR#s NEW DEAL was a near to State Communism as dammnit is to swearing.
I can assure you that RIGHT WING regimes bring in Firearms Control every bit as restrictive as the supposed RIGHT WING Regimes like Fascist Germany, Italy or Japan.
I can assure you that given long enough DONALD TRUMP would do EXACTLY the same simply because those who put peop-e like him in power ARE their Greatest Threats.
Albert L J Hall Then you are either as deaf and DUMB as a rock or you are delusional. This like your s o c i a l ist ideology is ALL ABOUT control!
“For the ignorant and stuopid …”
A good writer knows his subject.
I see that they are bringing back another COVID-19 crisis so that they can rig the 2024 elections just like they did the 2020 election. They know that they can’t win a normal election.