The mainstream media is in full anti-gun agitprop mode, following the release of a two-year CDC study that reports that shootings are now the third leading cause of death for children. Study reveals “staggering” toll of guns on U.S. kids cbsnews.com headlines. CDC: Shootings Kill or Injure at Least 19 US Children Each Day nbcbayarea.com announces. And once again . . .

none of the media reports link to the actual study. We contacted the CDC for a copy. Click here to read Childhood Firearm Injuries in the United States.

The “children” covered by the study are 17 and under. I’m not sure how the media suddenly figured that firearms are “now” number three on the childhood death list.

According to the CDC’s 2015 stats (above), unintentional injury and cancer are the top two causes of death for five to 14-year-olds, with suicide sitting at number three. For 15 – 24 year-olds (a better grouping), it’s unintentional injury, followed by suicide and homicide.

Has the percentage of firearms-related unintentional injury, suicide and/or homicides increased? That info might be relevant to a discussion about firearms safety and other related issues, but there’s no data on that.

We’ve tackled the contextless claim that “gun violence” is taking out our kids, most recently while fisking Mike “The Gun” Guy Weiser. But just so we’re clear about the role criminal activity plays in teenage firearms-related injuries and deaths, here’s anecdotal evidence from nbclosangeles.com:

[An off-duty U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer] was walking along the sidewalk on First Avenue, just south of Colorado Boulevard, when he was attacked from behind by the three teenage boys, Rodriguez said.

One of the suspects hit the officer in the head several times while another pointed a handgun at the officer and demanded his property, Rodriguez said.

“The victim thought the subjects were going to rob and shoot him so he retrieved his department issued handgun,” Rodriguez said. “The victim shot at the subjects in an effort to defend himself.”

The suspect with the handgun, the 15-year-old boy, and another suspect, one of the 14-year-old boys, were struck by the gunfire while the third suspect ran away when the shooting started and was not hit, according to Rodriguez.

The 15-year-old died of his injuries — but not before becoming a “childhood gun death” statistic that gun control advocates will use to try to deny Americans their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Not to mention the teenage gang bangers shot during the normal course of their criminal activities.

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48 COMMENTS

  1. I kinda sorta maybe hate to be cold about this, but:

    How many of these “children” were in Chicagostan, Detroitabad, Noo Yawk Sit-Tay and Lost Angel-Less ?

    Take out those numbers and well…… yeah.

  2. “Strangely, none of the media reports link to the actual study.”

    Or not so strange. Bet you a buck that study doesn’t say what they want us to think it does. (But you probably already know that.)

  3. When almost 34 billion Americans die a year from gun violence, that makes sense. Oh wait . . .

  4. Gotta be true. The media is reporting it and when I tell my NPR listening urban peers about the statistic I heard from the media they all agree with me and smile approvingly.

    So it must be true.

  5. Well, a 10-year-old playing outside who is gunned downed by a 17-year old gangbanger is a child. And the 17-year-old gangbanger who did it before he himself was gunned down by a rival gang member is also technically a child.

    But I guess I’m just a cold-hearted bastard, because I don’t see those two deaths as being equivalent in any way.

    • In the way most of us use the term, we are all “children;” I am and always will be my parents’ child. In the technical definition, it only includes birth to puberty making teenagers no longer “children.” They should be listed as adolescents which is a whole other group for good reason. Teenagers and young adults (18-24) are usually the ones committing most violent crime.

    • No.

      A 17 year old is not a child; he is a minor. A child is a youth who has not yet reached puberty – generally speaking, legally: a youth under the age of 14.

  6. The study admits most of these “children” are 13-17 year old male African Americans. The stats from Chicago are that 90% of people who get shot have a felony arrest record. So yes, sad that for that demographic the arbitrary grouping of gang violence+suicide ranks in the top causes of death, but not surprising, and not a justification for the police state sending jack booted thugs to steal my rights and my property.

    • But it is so sad that if there was a LAW outlawing guns this would not be happening … but wait. Isn’t there a law about shooting people? How come that isn’t working ….

  7. Statistics don’t lie, statisticians do. Perfect example of the strategy used when the pharma reps on this board post infectious disease death rates from 3rd world countries as if they are relevant in developed countries.

        • I’m surprised you live in a home that has running water with the government administering vaccines through drinking water and all (can you feel the sarcasm?). When they figure out how to put vaccines into the air you may need to stop breathing…or be scuba steve.

          Gotta run now. Trying to put together how Elvis shot JFK from the grassy knoll with a magic bullet developed by aliens from area 51.

  9. Gun crime is a black community issue. Blacks are more likely to be killed by someone else with a gun while whites are more likely to kill themselves with a gun.

  10. Amazing. I was sure that abortion would be up there. Guess if a pregnant teen is shot by a banger and both she and the child she is carrying die… it doesn’t count.

    The last CDC study I reviewed didn’t even list firearm deaths in the Top 10, or even in the Top 15. And they sure didn’t combine suicide and justifiable into the mix.

    • Nononononono . . . don’t you know that a fetus is not a person? How can it be included in gun deaths, when it isn’t alive yet? And it absolutely can’t be alive, because then abortion would be murder! See how that works? So no child, including one in the process of emerging from the birth canal, is living. It’s more like Redi-Whip on its way out of the can; or toothpaste. And a chick, while it is still inside the egg, is not a chick; it’s an egg with feathers inside and stuff. Perfectly logical. Perfectly.

      If you remove the homicide numbers from the top murder capitals of the United States, you get stats pretty much like Europe, especially if Europeans could defend themselves legally against murderous nutcases with cars and vans being driven by, ah, “extremist agents upset by world injustice and seeking to make a cogent statement on behalf of the need for religious balance.” Oh, yeah – and if Europe had a southern border with a region of the world harboring the top seven out of ten countries in homicide rates. Who flood across an open border. Because there’s money in human trafficking and drugs. With guns. Supplied by the ATFE. But Europe doesn’t. Of course, thanks to enlightened leaders like Merkel, it’s getting there . . .

      • George Steele,

        You got the whole baby/fetus thing all wrong. It doesn’t matter where the baby is, what matters is whether or not the mother has declared that her baby is human. If a mother declares that her baby is not human, she or her authorized agents can “legally” kill it. If she declares that her baby is human, then anyone who kills the baby in her uterus is now a murderer. See how that works?

        So, whether or not that baby is a human boils down to someone’s arbitrary declaration … the same way that slave owners arbitrarily determined whether or not slaves were not human (property) or human (upon discharging them from slavery and granting them freedom).

        • Right – because we don’t have rule of law in this country; we have rule of opinion. Or of ideology. Or of Hollywood gospel. Or of progressive rejection of “outmoded” thinking.” Or of whatever the fad of the day is. So mommy one can declare that her fetus is alive at the instant of conception, and mommy two can declare that the crying infant emerging from her birth canal isn’t, and somehow, miraculously, both are right! Because there is no reality, there is only imagination. All is real. To somebody. In the old days, that somebody would be undergoing therapy. Today they are writing articles in Salon.

          • To be fair, George, your comment pretty fairly represents the reasoning in a lot of court decisions on the “privacy” right.

  12. 93 million Americans died Sunday by criminals with guns. Waiting for today’s numbers. If i survive, I”ll post, maybe.

  13. When a study states that people between the age of 18 and 25 are “children”, it is not a valid study.

    • Huh, guess my friend should have seen a pediatric surgeon about those grenade fragments he picked up in Falujia.

  16. WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!!

    I thought that the evil NRA prevented government agencies from doing any research about guns!!!! /sarcasm

  17. Actual article:

    Katherine A. Fowler, PhD, Linda L. Dahlberg, PhD, Tadesse Haileyesus, MS, Carmen Gutierrez, MA, Sarah Bacon, PhD
    Childhood Firearm Injuries in the United States
    PEDIATRICS Volume 140, number 1, July 2017:e20163486

    From the Abstract:

    RESULTS: Nearly 1300 children die and 5790 are treated for gunshot wounds each year. Boys, older children, and minorities are disproportionately affected. Although unintentional firearm deaths among children declined from 2002 to 2014 and firearm homicides declined from 2007 to 2014, firearm suicides decreased between 2002 and 2007 and then showed a significant upward trend from 2007 to 2014. Rates of firearm homicide among children are higher in many Southern states and parts of the Midwest relative to other parts of the country. Firearm suicides are more dispersed across the United States with some of the highest rates occurring in Western states. Firearm homicides of younger children often occurred in multivictim events and involved intimate partner or family conflict; older children more often died in the context of crime and violence. Firearm suicides were often precipitated by situational and relationship problems. The shooter playing with a gun was the most common circumstance surrounding unintentional firearm deaths of both younger and older children.

  18. If they made their categories “shooting” and “not shooting,” then shooting could be the second leading cause.

  19. I Love that this is the first post that you see on the CBS.com link

    “””allisonkirk —If you hear about a household with both children and guns present REPORT THEM TO DFACS. You can do so anonymously in most states. Doing so may or may not lead to removal of the children but at the very least you can create some serious hassles for the gun owner, perhaps enough to re-consider gun ownership.””

    The gun grabbers rather break up families and have kids in the system—than you have 2nd amd right??

    AKA f-your rights and your kids!?
    Now that said in those terms would get me more than mad—take a swipe at my kids and—–I have to blank the rest!!!!

  20. “Although unintentional firearm deaths among children declined from 2002 to 2014 and firearm homicides declined from 2007 to 2014, firearm suicides decreased between 2002 and 2007 and then showed a *significant upward trend* from 2007 to 2014. ”

    Prepare for as ridiculous a claim as this agitprop sillyness, ready?

    The increase in suicides by firearm from 2007 to 2014 coincides with the presidency of Barracks Whosename Ain’tObama, thus ipso facto, Barrack Obama is the reason for the nations increased suicides by gun, and we need to immediately pass commonsense anti-Obama laws to keep our nation safe. For the childrens! I’m a journalist now, pay me the big media bucks hahaha.

    • ODumbutt might be the cause?

      Or this fact might be the cause too?

      All the free drugs that Odumbcare gave out to cranky kids for free! “Is your child messed up?” “Come in and get many free phyc drugs as the little rug chewer can handle!”

  21. I’m quite sure that at least 80% of these “children” diddn du nuffin.
    Just casually robbing a store in Chiraq and then suddenly: lead poisoning. Outta nowhere. Those evil guns man, i tell you…

  23. It took 2 minutes, literally to see that all those 13-18 yo suicides were done efficiently with firearms. But looking deeper isn’t really a conservative thing.

  24. Just curious, because this information seems to be somewhat useful and disturbing to some.

    What would you PREFER be the 3rd leading cause of death for children? Cancer? Heart disease? Diabetes? Choking? I mean something has to be 3rd. From the tone here it sounds like gun deaths are not desirable to be the 3rd leading cause of death. Then what?

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