courtesy Brady Campaign

“Laws that limit children’s access to guns — requirements for locking mechanisms on guns, keeping firearms in locked boxes or safes, and storing guns separate from ammunition — protected kids from suicide, the study found.

“‘States that didn’t have any laws designed to specifically protect children had four times the pediatric suicide death rate as states that had laws that both required safe gun storage and said you can’t provide a gun to a child,’ Chao said.

“She and her colleagues compared federal statistics on child gun-related deaths with a scorecard maintained by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The group rates gun law stringency state-by-state.” – WedMD, Study: Strict Gun Laws Cut Kids’ Firearm Deaths

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73 COMMENTS

  1. WebMD is an online, general topic medical (for the public) information website. WebMD also publishes a print magazine titled….

    WebMD

    Who takes a company like that seriously, at all?

    • They’re ok for general reference. But otherwise, yeah, it’s basically a page for hypochondriacs and helicopter moms.

      • Yeah, I’m tempted to block WebMD, Mayo Clinic, etc., every time my wife or our kids get sick because it’s really annoying and exhausting to drag her out of that internet search results panic spiral and back to reality.

        “This says it could be a symptom of cancer. Do you think it could be cancer?” Oy…

        One consolation is that most of my friends go through the same thing with their wives, too.

        • Yeah… I’m a bit spoiled by having a half dozen MDs in my family on call to consult whenever I need them. We’ve gotten to the point where we have our primary care physicians just copy us on anything they put into our charts.

          Unfortunately, WebMD just perpetuates the key problem of people with a very basic education thinking that they can make “informed” medical decisions just because of some article written by some two bit hack they found on the internet. Unfortunately, people grossly underestimate just how much work goes into training even a general practice physician. Once you get to specialties, you’re talking about people who have dedicated more than half their lives to understanding the materials at hand.

        • serge, just my personal experience, but doctors tend to miss a lot. Your family members probably take a bit more time discussing your ailments than they do their patients. I’ve had doctors 1) give me an infection from a cortisone shot then fail to recognize it as an infection, 2) fail to discover a blown out posterior cruciate ligament despite the fact that I was complaining about my knee popping (painfully) a couple hundred times a day and 3) totally misread a sonogram. During the second incident I also found out that orthopedic surgeons don’t know jack about soft tissue wound healing – you need a plastic surgeon for that. The muscle needs to look like pork, not beef before you can safely undertake a skin graft.

          Anyway, if you’ve got a good idea exactly what you’re ailment is when you walk into the doctor’s office it may save you more than you think.

    • It’s one of the too many to count pharmaceutical marketing/advertising sites trying to hide in plain sight as an objective health site.

  2. You know what else protects kids from suicide?

    – Having a full time parent.
    – Having a mother and a father in the home.
    – Having strong religious community support.

      • Fairy tales have been assisting parents in raising children to be well adjusted for thousands of years. I don’t have any more problem with that than I do with Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Anyone with sense grows out of it in their 20s anyway.

        • Have you ever actually read “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” or any of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories? They are very different than what we think of as fairy tales today. If by well-adjusted you mean scared to death, then you would be right. BTW, the Little Mermaid (“den lille havfrue” — literally “the small seawoman”) did not get to marry the prince — she died.

      • There’s more historical evidence that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected from the dead than for just about any historical figure of antiquity.

        • If by “historical evidence” you mean old jewish guys two thousand years ago writing in their journals about their hallucinations, then I guess you are correct, I concede.

        • L, what historical evidence do we have for the existence of anyone from antiquity except the writings of people who died thousands of years ago? The only people who don’t accept that Jesus Christ was a real human who walked the earth and gathered many followers are the die hard atheist loons like you.

          It’s been my observation that disbelief in a creator requires just as much if not more faith than belief in one. And while certain believers try hard to share their particular perspective of the nature of that creator, they do so out of genuine concern for their fellow man. But atheists seem to be genuinely threatened by the other faith of others and lash out with bitter contempt. If your faith in a lack of a creator was strong, it wouldn’t bother you that others believe differently.

        • L show me your evidence that Philip of Macedon existed… You’ll be drawing on far less historical evidence.

        • There’s some evidence that Jesus existed, but it’s all from the same few sources. There’s no consensus among historians that he existed. There’s zero impartial evidence of a resurrection. Even the Bible says that only a handful of people saw him, before he disappeared from the earth.

          There’s enough evidence, from a wide variety of sources, that Philip, Caesar, Hannibal, and other major historical figures existed that there’s no argument among historians.

          But regardless of whether Jesus was fact or fiction, he had some pretty good life advice.

        • @16v and L. So who do you guys thank for a beautiful day,or rain when it’s needed, the shade of a tree or bountiful harvest? I am not a Christian Jew, nor Muslim. But I do pray and thank a higher power

  3. Well obviously It only stopped the ones who were using firearms anyone bother checking the other methods of suicide for a rise In numbers???

    • Dunno if Brady is addressing that, as it is unimportant to their fund raising efforts, which are directed at about 2 people.

  4. Would be interesting to see how increased social media usage among adolescents and teens correlates to suicide. Wild guess: Facebook plays a bigger part in said suicides than guns.

      • It may sound conspiratorial to say, but social media is the new tobacco industry, and Zuckerberg is Joe Camel.

    • Pre-internet the bullying was mostly confined to the school. Now with smartphones and social media, the bullying is 24/7.

      Is this progress?

      • “Now with smartphones and social media, the bullying is 24/7.”

        I don’t get all this “cyber bullying”. How does anyone become bullied by ones and zeros in the ether? How does anyone become bullied by an inanimate object (computer, tablet, phone)? And if a non-human object has the power of bullying someone, it is a sign of the need for a keeper. Back in the day, bullies were real, present in classrooms ant the playground, bigger than the targets, capable of rendering actual physical violence. Today, people pee themselves if they get “dissed” (bullied) on social media. Throw the damn device in the trash, and live your life.

        • All valid points when pertaining to somebody who reached maturity before the social media era. Currently the paradigm has changed from when Sam I Am and Esoteric Inanity where kids. Most children now have little to no social life or friends without an account on several of the various social media sites.

          It used to be that one was in the in if they caught the latest episode of SNL or spouted off lines from Monty Python. Now to be with the in crowd in school, one has to be connected with the “cool kids” on FB, Twitter or Instagram. The bullying and harassment takes place here and is often perpetrated by said “cool kids”. It’s a rather cut throat culture.

          Hell, one can’t hardly even get a girlfriend this day and age without some type of social media account. Imagine the look that the bar maid gave when she discovered that a patron didn’t have a social media presence. Why he must have been a loon, serial killer, luddite, (Gasp) or even worse: somebody who values their privacy, oh the horror. She then turned him into a newt, but he got better.

          • Great reply.

            I do wonder, though, if an inanimate object can take on the human characteristic of bullying, then can another inanimate object be responsible for unnecessary death and injury? Can one be possible, and the other not?

        • To be clear, Southern Cross did not say that the social media was doing the actual bullying. It is the vehicle through which the bullies (people) are doing the bullying. The inanimate object, whether a phone or gun, doesn’t actually do anything by itself. It is used for good or evil by a person making choices.

  5. Using a “scorecard maintained by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence” as a key factor in their study is like using Dracula’s assessment of the Blood Bank’s Security protocols to evaluate Security Enhancements for the Blood Bank.

  6. As a gun owner…with kids…I keep my guns secured when they are not on my person or within easy reach.
    I think that is part of being a responsible gun owner…and a responsible parent.
    There are plenty of other ways to commit suicide, too.
    Accidental poisonings? How many are actually suicides?
    Autoerotic asphyxiation? Might be suicide as well.
    Their body…their choice…like with abortions. You may not like the choice, of course.
    If they are younger…say 12 or under (or whatever age you insert)… then parent needs to be charged if they leave a loaded gun where a child is able to access it and they use it in a criminal manner.
    Same with prescription drugs, pool chemicals, dangerous toys and tools…etc etc etc

    • “Same with prescription drugs, pool chemicals, dangerous toys and tools…etc etc etc”

      It is settle science that guns, and only guns, pose a deadly risk to children (0-22yrs). Reports of other means of “childhood” deaths are simply part of the great right wing conspiracy, promoted by the over-powerful, hugely rich, l white supremacist media masters (who are making it impossible to get the truth out). It is all about making parents afraid of their children’s inability to understand anything.

      Time to stop this Trump fake news about “other” dangers to children in its tracks!!

  7. The key is education. Kids need to be taught by parents about firearm safety. The problem is not guns, it’s parents that are either hoplophobic or do not spend time with their children. Just being anti gun does not equal education. Analysis of suicide in teenagers almost always has to do with a disfunctional home.

    • I see a correlation with population density, not gun laws. Otherwise Texas and the south-east would be dark red.

      You’d also find that a map of the homicide rate would look exactly the opposite.

    • The CDC was tasked with investigating firearm data in order to assign taxpayer money to producing anti-gun propaganda. I will never believe ANYTHING about firearms which has “CDC” included in it, anywhere. Not anything. It is not their business, they have no training or experience, their motivation is massively slanted, and they have zero interest in anything except increasing their funding and their power. The truth falls by the wayside.

      • The CDC is terminally corrupt. It has become a branch of the pharmaceutical industry, among other things.

    • Did they control for estimated number of firearms per capita in each state? Gun grabbing paradise like Hawaii or New Jersey with all kinds of draconian laws will most likely have less suicide by a gun simply because guns are less available than in more free state like Arizona.
      In other news, Alaska has much lower number of ‘drowning while swimming on the beach’ than California.

    • Chicago, New York, LA, those poor kids never have a chance to commit suicide because they are shot by rival gangs first.

      As all the worst states are land locked, we can determine that the presence of the ocean keeps people from committing suicide.

      All the worst states have large deposits of dinosaurs. Clearly dinosaurs cause people to commit suicide.

  9. Sounds fine until your teenager discovers a naked guy in the kitchen holding a pitchfork.

  10. There’s probably no universally applicable formula for raising children in a home where firearms are present and insuring everyone stays safe and sound. Too many variables in today’s society.

    Anecdote Alert: In a locality where I used to live a young man aged 14, who had been trained by his Father in Firearms Safety and given access for home defense to a pistol and shotgun, was having ongoing fights with his Dad over School Grades. After a particularly vitriolic fight over a poor Math Test Grade, the youngster took the pistol and killed himself with it leaving a note about how sorry he was he “messed-up so bad” and disappointed his Dad again.

    Not just proper training, storage and access control is necessary.

    • “Not just proper training, storage and access control is necessary.”

      Once upon a time, we had a sane society. Adversity was not an anomaly to be removed by parents. Respect for authority was pretty much the norm (especially in the homes).

      My family had firearms in every house, mine, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. We also had one strikingly different concept than is available today – we feared the wrath of our parents more than we wanted the entertainment value of disobedience.

      We also understood that slacking off in our responsibilities would not be met with a smile. But, I guess it was the fact that we knew we should have responsibilities that made a big difference between then and now. Of course, in those days, adults made the unforgivable mistake of staying together, and providing a home for children (who were not treated as fashion accessories).

      • My childhood was similar. I got my first “real rifle” at age 13 (and still have it). My brother got his first real rifle when he turned 13. Times have changed radically. My parents celebrated 65 years of marriage. My brother and I often tell each other we were lucky to have such great parents and to grow up when we did in THAT America. Thanks for a comment that brought back many wonderful memories.

          • “Was one of those wonderful memories the sense of dread you felt after Mom said to you : “Just wait ’till your Father gets home!” ?”

            Along with, “If you ever do that…I’ll tear you up.”

            Note: my Dad was deployed a lot, so the “Father comes home” threat was real – Dad didn’t want to waste time talking endlessly about how we would be happier doing what Mom said.

        • “Thanks for a comment that brought back many wonderful memories.”

          Glad to be helpful; it was a blind squirrel moment.

        • My Dad was a Fire Fighter (On 24, Off 24) and my Mom was a feisty woman with an Irish Temper. She knew Dad had her back and leveraged it well. So, if we misbehaved when Dad was on Duty there was no waiting to know the consequence(s). Mom taught us the meaning of “instant Karma”.
          By the time “Wait til your Father gets home” came on TV I was past the age of Parental discipline. Never watched the Show. Had to look it up.

  11. So a quick scan of the article reveals no hard numbers on suicide just the claim that, “Lax firearms laws, in particular, create an increased risk for suicide among children, the researchers found.”

    The only hard numbers I saw on risk were 7.5 injuries per 100,000 in “good” states (according to Brady) and 8.3 per 100,000 in the “bad” states. A whopping difference of 0.8/100000 or 0.000008 = 0.0008%. Note this is for all injuries so the suicides they talk about are embedded in (and probably represent something on the order of 10% of) these data. Not sure how much of a claim you can make from a difference that small that is based upon an “independent” variable that is an arbitrary “score” of a state’s gun laws by a biased organization. Call me when you can show me an effect that exceeds one thousandth of one percent of the population.

    They did also note that 41% of kids b/w 7 and 17 couldn’t tell the difference between a real gun and a fake one. Storage laws don’t fix that – teach your kids people.

    • Good point. the amount you listed is considered ‘statistical noise’ by researchers, really having no influence on the outcome of the study. As for locking guns up, sure sounds good on paper, but it is a problem solved by proper parenting. If you really need the weapon to protect that child, what do you do when someone breaks into your house, ask them to wait a minute while you find the keys for your gun lock?

  12. After poking around The CDC report maps for a variety of statistics related to adolescents, a trend started to appear. It seems to show that whatever the statistic covers, be it cigarette smoking, drug use, suicide or death for any reason, the same states seem to have the lowest reported numbers per 100,000 population. That indicates to me that they are underreporting due to lack of data collection on children compared to the other States. Any rate for CA, NY, MA, NJ, DE, RI for any type of data on adolescents tends to fall below the country average.

  15. Again, more fake news. Political propaganda & Actors designed to create crisis and direct the news. Not report anything. Hoping that every low information dumby in the USA will vote in the DNC Lib TARDs so they can bulldoze the U.S. Constitution/Bill of Rights…

  16. The last time the Doctors and the medical community became involved in a countries politics to effect the general populations. Was during world war 2. It gave rise to the 3rd Reich and the Nazi party…Thanks to the medical community they were able to help assist in medical experimentation, torture, and the genocide of political and ethnic prisoners. An questions, just ask if doctor Mangler accepted Obamacare…

  18. It would really help the future generations if they were taught about their civil rights and history. Why can’t every state 2A organization work on this LONG TERM project? Adult homosexuals, adult Liberal gun owners (who mostly don’t have kids), and adults of any color, are not going to be around in 50 or 70 years to support civil rights.

    “Firearm Education: Teaching the Second Amendment in Kentucky school system grades K through 12”
    http://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/bis437/149

    North Carolina 2A education bill
    https://webservices.ncleg.net/ViewBillDocument/2017/2854/0/DRH30224-MK-148

  19. “‘States that didn’t have any laws designed to specifically protect children had four times the pediatric suicide death rate as states that had laws that both required safe gun storage and said you can’t provide a gun to a child,’ Chao said.

    The “four times” statistic is a huge red flag. Results that dramatic usually only occur when the incidence of the thing bring studied is so low that small increases in absolute numbers result in seemingly large multiples of change.

    Also, the evergreen “correlation is not causation.” The uncontrolled variables in their little comparison are virtually infinite.

    • “Results that dramatic usually only occur when the incidence of the thing bring studied is so low that small increases in absolute numbers result in seemingly large multiples of change.”

      Learned how to deal with statistics long ago, with this little story: Small town is populated with retirees and rich people living off investments. The town actually has two employees to look after municipal issues. One of the two reaches retirement age, and leaves employment. Next day, a nearby newspaper posts banner headline “Small town suffers 50% unemployment”.

  20. The Brady Campaign…

    Recognizing the horror Brady experienced, respect for his service, and same for all the other anti-gun poster victims. They are compelling figureheads because in the US, violence is rare; gun violence rarer.

    330 million living people are symbols that widespread citizen gun ownership is not a plague, tens of millions of gun owners who never shot anyone suggests gun owners aren’t especially crazy, up to 2.5 million DGUs / year (Some years ago. We’ll wait for the CDC to cough up more recent data.) demonstrate that people can be responsible, courageous and effective at need.

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