And "firearm-related death" is not the leading cause of child mortality in the U.S. It's not even in the top ten. Vehicular incidents and accidental poisonings kill several orders of magnitude more children. In reality, the U.S. is one of the safest places for children to grow up (assuming they aren't aborted under our "lax laws", which kill another order of magnitude more than vehicles, but that's another issue).
But "child gun death" is a cherry-picked data point that's politically useful.
It's also gut-wrenching: our natural tendency when hearing the phrase "child gun death" is to envision a four-to-six-year-old accidentally shooting him/her self, or being the victim of domestic violence/abuse. The reality is the vast majority of "child gun deaths" are gang-involved 15-to-19-year-olds shooting other gang-involved 15-to-19-year-olds in the endless drug-trade-related urban "turf wars".
But that reality is NOT politically useful, so it never gets mentioned.
I wonder if the data collection in other categories also includes up to age 19? I was unable to read the original report (F you, NEJM)but noticed in the article about the report it said something about data from 58 jurisdictions.... Jurisdictions with significant gang violence issue? I must wonder. Could this skew results in the direction they want to find? Hmmm?
Info freely available on the CDC's WISQARS site clearly shows that if you REALLY want to protect the children of America from the most frequent cause of accidental death, you will ban swimming pools. You can look it up.
And "firearm-related death" is not the leading cause of child mortality in the U.S. It's not even in the top ten. Vehicular incidents and accidental poisonings kill several orders of magnitude more children. In reality, the U.S. is one of the safest places for children to grow up (assuming they aren't aborted under our "lax laws", which kill another order of magnitude more than vehicles, but that's another issue).
ReplyDeleteBut "child gun death" is a cherry-picked data point that's politically useful.
It's also gut-wrenching: our natural tendency when hearing the phrase "child gun death" is to envision a four-to-six-year-old accidentally shooting him/her self, or being the victim of domestic violence/abuse. The reality is the vast majority of "child gun deaths" are gang-involved 15-to-19-year-olds shooting other gang-involved 15-to-19-year-olds in the endless drug-trade-related urban "turf wars".
But that reality is NOT politically useful, so it never gets mentioned.
These people are vultures and worse.
I wonder if the data collection in other categories also includes up to age 19? I was unable to read the original report (F you, NEJM)but noticed in the article about the report it said something about data from 58 jurisdictions.... Jurisdictions with significant gang violence issue? I must wonder. Could this skew results in the direction they want to find? Hmmm?
ReplyDeleteLies, damn lies and statistics.
ReplyDeleteWTF is all this D crap spewing forth from Fox lately? No longer content with hiding as controlled opposition?
ReplyDeleteI sent a correction message, telling them adolescents are 1 - 14, not 1 - 19. Let's see if they respond.
ReplyDeleteInfo freely available on the CDC's WISQARS site clearly shows that if you REALLY want to protect the children of America from the most frequent cause of accidental death, you will ban swimming pools. You can look it up.
ReplyDelete