Gun Control Cultists Say: Do It For The Children

Once again, the Gun Control Cultists (GCCs) bring out their old standby argument--"gun control for the sake of the children."

In a recent HuffPo post, Marian Wright Edelman decries the Trayvon Martin shooting and points us to a recent report from the Children's Defense Fund entitled Protect Children, Not Guns (PDF here).

The report starts with an overview pointing out a series of startling statistics. For example,

The number of preschoolers killed by guns in 2008 (88) and in 2009 (85) was nearly double the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty in 2008 (41) and 2009 (48).

and

The most recent analysis of data from 23 industrialized nations shows that 87 percent of the children under age 15 killed by guns in these nations lived in the United States. The gun homicide rate in the United States for teens and young adults ages 15 to 24 was 42.7 times higher than the combined rate for the other nations.

The report then goes on to examine various statistics surrounding firearms and children/teens, illustrated by lovely graphs and tables.

But here's something interesting.

Buried in the middle of those statistics in the overview is this one

The leading cause of death....[f]or White teens 15 to 19 it was motor vehicle accidents

which is immediately followed up by the line

followed by gun homicide in 2008 and gun suicide in 2009.

According to WISQARS data, the top three leading causes of death for Whites, ages 15-19, both sexes, from 2008-2009, in ranked order are:

• Unintentional Injury
• Suicide
• Homicide

Here's the leading cause within each injury group and the number of deaths:

• Unintentional Injury: MV Traffic - 5,802
• Suicide: Firearm - 1,217
• Homicide: Firearm - 1,228

By those numbers, there were 3,357 more white teens ages 15-19 who died from MV traffic than suicide or homicide by firearm!

Why aren't we banning cars?!?

Furthermore, there were 8,661 total Unintentional Injuries as opposed to 2,686 Suicides and 1,592 Homicides. Within those Unintentional Injuries are, in ranked order and with the number of deaths:

• MV Traffic: 5,802
• Poisoning: 1,440
• Drowning: 401
• Other Land Transport: 254
• Fall: 122
• Suffocation: 99
• Pedestrian, Other: 92
• Fire/burn: 85

and then Firearm with 82 deaths.

Poisonings account for 1,440 unintentional injuries. Why aren't we banning drugs that might cause poisonings?

And there you have it, Folks--yet another case of the GCCs using half-truths and misleading with statistics.

So why would they leave out such telling statistics?

Because it doesn't conform to their worldview, that's why.