Fact Check: Guns Are Not The Leading Cause Of Children’s Deaths

By John R. Lott Jr. for RealClearWire

A favourite speaking level from the Biden White Home is that weapons are the main explanation for dying of youngsters. The issue is that it is false.

“The number one cause of death of the children in America is gun violence,” Vice President Kamala Harris claimed on June 2. Later the White Home tweeted, “Weapons are the #1 KILLER of CHILDREN.” President Biden has made the same claim a number of instances this 12 months.

The Washington Submit parroted this declare, working the headline: “Why guns are America’s number one killer of children.” Equally, the NPR headline says: “Firearms overtook auto accidents as the leading cause of death in children,” and even the BBC bought in on the act: “Gun deaths were the leading killer of US children in 2020.” Reality-checkers from Newsweek to Snopes additionally push these claims.

The primary query is: What’s a baby? For these underneath 18, car deaths are constantly higher than these from firearms. Including homicides, unintentional deaths, and suicides collectively exhibits 2,443 total deaths from vehicles and 2,218 from firearms. In 2021, there have been once more 2,668 car and a couple of,519 firearm deaths. After we exclude justifiable homicides which might be dedicated in self-defense, that quantity falls by a number of hundred.

So, even when we’re counting 17-year-old gang members as “kids,” the White Home’s declare is inaccurate. In 2019 and 2020, extra minors died from suffocation.

Homicides for all ages have been on the upswing throughout the nation beginning in 2020. Democrats blame this improve on weapons whereas ignoring police funds cuts, refusal to prosecute violent criminals, bail reform, and mass launch of many younger, wholesome inmates in the course of the pandemic.

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Many individuals would even outline kids at even youthful ages. However the claims by gun management advocates like Biden and Harris are solely doable in the event that they outline everybody underneath 20 as kids.

For these underneath 20, firearm deaths exceed car deaths for 2020 and 2021 once you use the CDC firearm homicide data. Once you use the FBI knowledge, the car deaths exceed the firearm deaths for 2019 and 2020, and certain 2021, although the FBI knowledge isn’t obtainable for that 12 months. The underside line is that a couple of third of the firearm deaths for these underneath 20 contain murder, the place the victims are 18 and 19 years outdated. Roughly 20% contain homicides for 15, 16, and 17-year-olds. These deaths are largely gang-related, and even banning weapons is unlikely to cease drug gangs from acquiring weapons to guard their extraordinarily beneficial medication.

Nor does it make sense responsible rising suicides on weapons. When gun bans are enacted, there are a lot of different efficient methods to commit suicide, resembling hanging, walking in front of a train, jumping from a height, using explosives, or taking cyanide. Certainly, whereas gun bans are related to drops in firearm suicides, there isn’t a change in complete suicides.

With the FBI knowledge, firearm suicides make up about 40% of all firearm deaths. So, for instance, in 2020, for these underneath 20, eradicating suicides would cut back the variety of firearm deaths – utilizing the numbers from the CDC – from 4,253 to 2,960, and – utilizing the FBI homicide price knowledge – from 3,405 to 2,112.

Banning weapons would possibly scale back firearm suicides and circumstances of self-defense, but it surely gained’t scale back firearm murders. Certainly, a ban on weapons, even a handgun ban like those we’ve seen in Washington and Chicago, inevitably makes issues a lot worse. After every gun ban, murder rates have gone up.

One would assume that simply as soon as, out of straightforward randomness, homicide charges would have gone down or remained the identical after a ban. However every time crime knowledge can be found from each earlier than and after a ban, we will see that homicide charges have gone up (usually by enormous quantities).

Gun management advocates will inform you that Washington and Chicago weren’t truthful checks. They’ll level out that criminals may nonetheless get weapons in Virginia or Maryland, or in Illinois or Indiana. Whereas that may clarify why homicide charges didn’t fall as promised, it doesn’t clarify why homicide and violent crime charges went up.

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Even island nations have fared no higher. After the UK banned handguns in January 1997, its murder price rose by 50% over the next eight years. The speed returned to earlier ranges solely after a 14% improve within the variety of police.

Much more dramatic post-ban surges occurred in Jamaica and Eire, with six or sevenfold will increase in murder charges.

Democrats can’t settle for their accountability for elevated violent crime in 2020 and 2021. They need to blame weapons, and there’s no higher manner to take action than to maintain claiming that weapons are the primary killer of “kids.”

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

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