CNN is claiming that CDC statistics show guns kill more children than cars

[MEHavey]

I had three takeaways:

CNN deliberately conflates the emotion-ridden term "children" with the 15-18-year old set.
I do not. That age cohort is/has always been the onset of young adult status.

That age cohort has also always been the most prone to various forms of violence as part of "settling-in" as to their place in the social order
But until recently, widespread fatal violence as a means of that settling was rare.

The graphs display a near unbelievable asymptotic rise in fatal violence in just the last five years. That is not a gun problem, per se.
It is an emergent society come absolutely unstuck at the root level.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The vital difference between correlation vs causation is ignored.
Deliberately so... since to recognize the terrible consequences from loss of a central cohesive culture ...
...is counter to the popular agenda.


.

 

[Roverguy]

These numbers may or may not be interesting but they are relevant only as a talking point in the litany of leftist propaganda. What matters to the the left in Congress, state legislatures, city councils and their constituents is mass shoutings and, in particular, school shootings. Because that is the gun violence that the children of the affluent are potentially susceptible to.

Thus, the disproportionate focus of the left and their legislative and judicial representatives on things like “high capacity” magazines and semi auto rifles, rather than hand guns, which are used in the overwhelming majority of gun homicides. The left is not concerned with gun violence or gun homicides. The left is concerned with the randomness of school and mass shootings exposing their otherwise coddled and protected, predominantly white children from violence.

Because they are also anti-police, the left prefers ineffectual “gun regulation” to effective policing and security. Statistics tell us that the vast and overwhelming number of gun homicides are committed by a demographic accounting for about 4% of the population. That demographic is also the overwhelming victim of gun homicides. Stop and frisk policies in urban centers and at schools would rapidly and substantially reduce gun homicides. But, racial profiling. The prevention of gun violence and gun homicides is less important to the left than their positions on equity.

The left are not interested in nor will they be swayed by crime statistics, or any facts that contradict their narrative: that guns are dangerous and only the police (if them) and the military should have access to firearms. The more “reasonable” among them may allow “hunters” to have some limited access to highly regulated firearms.

And the left is winning in legislatures and in the propaganda offensive that they coordinate with most major media outlets. Only in the courts is the right to keep and bear arms regularly protected through litigation. If you want to “counter the antis”, donate money to the Second Amendment Foundation and others that fight for our rights and win in court. Outside of courts, facts don’t matter, politics do.

 

[WisBorn]

Note: Data shows the top five "injury mechanism and all other leading causes of death" as collected by the CDC Wonder database, as of 2021.

So when Automobile accidents deaths decrease do to better safety equipment. And cancer deaths decrease do to better science it will reduce the percentage of deaths for those causes. When that happens the percentage of children that die do to other mechanisms will increases. It necessarily doesn't mean that the number of deaths increased by the mechanism. Just the percentage.

If I child dies do to suicide by firearm they died by a firearm. If they die by suicide from drug overdose they die by drugs.

It's not the data that is bad it is how the data is interpreted and/or presented.

My question is, how as a group of gun owners are we going to stop these school shootings?

 

[buck460XVR]

It's not the data that is bad it is how the data is interpreted and/or presented.

...exactly. According to Cornell University,

Under the law, a child usually refers to an individual who is a minor, who is below legal age or the age of majority. The age of majority being 18 in most states.

. So, saying someone that is a child at 18-19 is subjective, just as is saying a 17 1/2 year old, is not. At 69 years of age, anyone 20 or under is a kid to me. Does not make me right in everyone's eyes. My point is, regardless of what you call them, a lot of children and "young adults" are being killed. A good portion of High School students are over the age of majority. While they are not legally "children" any more, they are still at risk of a school shooting.

My question is, how as a group of gun owners are we going to stop these school shootings?

....and this is the quandary. How can I prevent anymore restrictions on firearms and still reduce the number of young people at risk who are easy targets from those that want to do them harm, using a firearm. I don't know the easy answer, and I have yet to ever hear a viable answer given on any of the gun forums I belong to. Here on this forum, the first thread about the Nashville shooting was not about the horror or the sadness of the tragic deaths, but the lamenting of "Here comes another gun/ammo shortage!".

 

[red rick]

Kids have always had easy access to guns . I use to take a shotgun to school in my car when I was in high school , to go hunting after school . What has changed is people , their families , faith , values , patriotism , discipline and what is being taught in schools . Parents need to get involved with their kids and stay involved in their lives . Take the computers , cell phones , video games and social media away from them . Schools should teach reading , writing , arithmetic , history and the constitution and not sex and critical race . The schools should also stop bullying . The government should let parents and teachers discipline kids again . Time out is not working . The things that I listed are what has changed over the last 30 years and will take years to fix , if we were inclined to fix it , but we are not . It’s a societal problem in this country and it’s easy to blame the gun and not look in the mirror and see what we are doing to the kids and how we raise them and what they are taught .

 

[wayneinFL]

...exactly. According to Cornell University, . So, saying someone that is a child at 18-19 is subjective, just as is saying a 17 1/2 year old, is not. At 69 years of age, anyone 20 or under is a kid to me. Does not make me right in everyone's eyes. My point is, regardless of what you call them, a lot of children and "young adults" are being killed. A good portion of High School students are over the age of majority. While they are not legally "children" any more, they are still at risk of a school shooting.



....and this is the quandary. How can I prevent anymore restrictions on firearms and still reduce the number of young people at risk who are easy targets from those that want to do them harm, using a firearm. I don't know the easy answer, and I have yet to ever hear a viable answer given on any of the gun forums I belong to. Here on this forum, the first thread about the Nashville shooting was not about the horror or the sadness of the tragic deaths, but the lamenting of "Here comes another gun/ammo shortage!".

How is it up to me, as a gun owner, to stop this?

That presupposes this is caused by guns. It also presupposes that I can do something about it.

And the only solution people are interested in are legislative solutions. There ought to be a law. And the first thing the government does is go find the people who didn't do it and punish them. It a little weird that the first thing we think of is how it affects us, but many of us, while we have families and mourn all these events, we still have to worry about how this affects us, our children and their children to come.

But suppose you take the position that we, as gun owners, have to accept restrictions to fix this- it's solely on our shoulders.

What restriction do you think would help? An assault weapons ban? Would you hand that killer a rifle with 10 round mags and no bayonet lug, and send him/her into a school?

Maybe make the age limit 29 to own a firearm?

The killer was seeing a psychologist for an emotional issue. Maybe anyone that sees a psychologist can't have a firearm? I've seen a psychologist- last year, a few months after my father passed. You think you'd be safer if the government came and took my guns?

The problem is that there really isn't an easy answer, and the answers don't involve guns. MSD in Parkland hit close to home for me. I passed it on the way to work for years. My old boss was a baseball coach there. I had friends with kids in that school the day it happened.

That kid had 38 separate interactions with the police. The school had tried to Baker Act him twice. Police were called for misdemeanor domestic violence. The kid shouldn't have had a pointy stick, let alone a gun.

What did Florida do about it? Dealers can't sell a gun to anyone under 21. I have a son who isn't allowed to bring his gun to the range without me. Solved absolutely nothing.

 

[rust collector]

When I grew up, there were guns in many vehicles in the parking lot and pocket knives were common. The guns were for hunting after school, and the knives were for cutting cord or peeling bark off a stick. As @red rick noted, the access was always there but was accompanied by clear instruction and example on how they were to be used. This came directly from Dad. Now young people learn about life through the phone, a monitor or TV. Nobody wants to admit that we are letting machines, and the producers, advertisers and programmers, raise our children.

As most of us know, it's not about guns. Gun owners aren't causing the problem unless we fail to impress our kids with the proper and permissible uses of firearms. It's about a widespread fundamental failure of our society to work directly with young people. Politicians know that is not a popular cause, nor an easy fix. It is far easier to blame a tool or someone else than to own a problem like this. Just as anger and alienation have become the way we elect people these days, that shows itself at school and in other public places where no guns=soft targets.

Yes, the new figures get my attention even though certain factors such as exclusion of children in the first year of life and addition of 19 year-olds skew the data. They will continue to be used to divert attention until we as a society decide to work with kids, nurture them and protect them in ways that seem to have disappeared over the years. That is not unique to gun owners, but we have the most to lose in these strange times.

 

[army_eod]

CNN and CDC. That is where I stop reading.

 

[Starter52]

Child: A person from birth to puberty.
Adolescent: A person from puberty to adulthood.

I learned this in biology class years ago.

 

[mcb]

CNN and CDC. That is where I stop reading.

CNN I can understand but the CDC has a heaps of good data. Yes some of the muckiety-mucks at the top of the CDC have agendas based on self interests but most of the hard data the CDC collects is well done and their public interface to query that data on their website is getting better and better. The CDC and the FBI have some very good databases of publicly available data. Don't turn your nose up at the data it is a double edge sword and we need to use it as much as the other side.

 

[jmorris]

I always liked statistics because I can make them work for any side of an argument I choose. That’s before we even get to how they were gathered.

Not to mention 86.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot…

 

[bwalker36]

My thing is you can't just lump all children gun deaths into the same category. As people said earlier 14-18 is ripe for gang violence in inner cities. Solving that problem is different then solving child suicide by gun. I understand its difficult, but I would want to know things in every case like, was the firearm legally acquired which I would wager in one area the answer is no, did the fatal shooting occur in the act of other criminal activity. It needs more qualifications IMO. I don't recall the CDC website having that level of data the last time I looked so if it does ignore me.

 

[hso]

Isn't 18 pretty much the cutoff in most of the US? T

Yes, in general at 18 permission from parents/guardians is no longer required legally to enter into legally binding contracts/commitments. Prior to that age they're termed a minor.

OTOH, the definition of a child is a developmental criteria and of some debate. A child may be considered as a pre-teen or pre 14 or 15 year old and the 14-18 year old as no longer a child, but not an adult.

Therefore, while by legal terms anyone 18 or older is an adult and below that age is a minor, developmentally and by independent action (and at times charged and prosecuted as adultz) there is that category of teens that are neither child nor adult. Not quite a perfectly clear definition of child or adult when subject to being charged, prosecuted, and convicted in the teen years as an adult.

 

[WisBorn]

....and this is the quandary. How can I prevent anymore restrictions on firearms and still reduce the number of young people at risk who are easy targets from those that want to do them harm, using a firearm. I don't know the easy answer, and I have yet to ever hear a viable answer given on any of the gun forums I belong to. Here on this forum, the first thread about the Nashville shooting was not about the horror or the sadness of the tragic deaths, but the lamenting of "Here comes another gun/ammo shortage!".

I agree.
I don't have all the answers. There has been much written about root cause mitigation and improving mental health systems. But we do little to act on root cause and even less on pushing our politicians to fund mental health care.
Also much has been written about red flag laws. Red flag laws aren't all bad, but there are badly written red flag laws.
I do know that if we continue to sit on your hands and only complain about our rights being taken away with no other solutions, our rights will be taken away!

 

[bwalker36]

I agree.
I don't have all the answers. There has been much written about root cause mitigation and improving mental health systems. But we do little to act on root cause and even less on pushing our politicians to fund mental health care.
Also much has been written about red flag laws. Red flag laws aren't all bad, but there are badly written red flag laws.
I do know that if we continue to sit on your hands and only complain about our rights being taken away with no other solutions, our rights will be taken away!

I don't mind the concept of a red flag law. We encourage everyone to see something say something all the time, I have an issue when they remove due process from the equation. There has got to be a way for concerned people to properly convey their concerns to authority with a proper investigation that doesn't require randomly showing up without notice and taking rights away.

 

[Pudge]

My question is, how as a group of gun owners are we going to stop these school shootings?

If I could end all school shootings tomorrow, what impact would that have on the statistics we are discussing?

 

[dogtown tom]

https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff-ebook/dp/B09HT1YRMF

One of the best books ever.

 

[bearcreek]

I do know that if we continue to sit on your hands and only complain about our rights being taken away with no other solutions, our rights will be taken away!

The solution is cultural, not governmental, which means it's going to take a really long time to fix and require some major changes in how people live their lives and raise children.

 

[WisBorn]

If I could end all school shootings tomorrow, what impact would that have on the statistics we are discussing?

The CNN article stated the Nashville shooting in it.
Also the nineteen babies that were killed in Uvalde they are nineteen deaths that are part of the statistics.

 

[WisBorn]

I don't mind the concept of a red flag law. We encourage everyone to see something say something all the time, I have an issue when they remove due process from the equation. There has got to be a way for concerned people to properly convey their concerns to authority with a proper investigation that doesn't require randomly showing up without notice and taking rights away.

Like I said, Red flag laws aren't bad, but there are badly written red flag laws.

 

[jmr40]

I don't doubt the numbers, but numbers and statistics need context. I'd like to see more raw numbers, not just percentages. If I have a dime and increase my assets by 100% I've doubled my money and I still don't have enough money to buy anything. If I have $1 Million dollars and double my money, I've made some serious money. Saying something increased by a percentage doesn't mean much until you know where you started.

Also, the percentage of deaths from motor vehicles and cancer have dropped dramatically while the percentage killed with firearms has only risen slightly.

The chart shows that we've come a long way to reduce the percentage of kids dying in vehicles and from cancer. And that makes the percentages of those who die from everything else higher.

 

[lightman]

This does not sound accurate to me. Bad data or intentional distortion?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/health/us-children-gun-deaths-dg

I don't believe this. But I could be wrong? I would need to see data from another source or two. I also believe that you're not a child once you reach 18 years old.

 

[21H40]

I’m curious about how this data looks if you take the gun deaths per year as a percentage of total children and see if that number is also increasing.

As for those who dismiss the numbers entirely, is there any source you would trust? If the CDC and FBI aren’t valid keepers of data then who?

 

[doubleh]

The simple fact is that a gun is a machine and without a human to operate it it does nothing. It's just the same as a hammer. Without human input they just exist but are incapable of doing what they are designed to do. We have a human problem without any clue how to solve it. Politicians simple want to take away all guns and ultimately it is about having control, not about saving lives.

 

[theotherwaldo]

I suspect that removing the number of shootings in the big Blue cities by known and previously apprehended gang-bangers then those statistics would be drastically changed.

"...If you're under eighteen you won't be doing any time..."
-The Offspring.