U.S. children and teens are more likely to die because of guns than car crashes, drug overdoses and cancer.
it’s a shame guns have so many rights
even protected by god
Welp, I looked it up, and one study focused on 14 and younger, about a thousand deaths by car crash, and one focused on 13 to 19, with about 3000 deaths, so even combined and ignoring the overlap in the age range of the studies and going over the age of 18, 15% more kids in the US are getting killed by guns than car crashes, and that gap is widening each year.
Car crashes, ODs and cancer fatalities among minors are far lower than I thought. Just as an aside.
I’m not American, I’m Canadian. Talking about the statistics is important but holy fucking shit it’s depressing. Any more than 0 accidental deaths is too many.
Got it. More depressing is that most of those gun deaths are not an accident.
It’s something like 2%, the other 98% are people choosing to shoot other people.
“people choosing to shoot other people” or, for a very substantial percentage, people choosing to shoot themselves
Good point. Almost all US gun deaths are intentional, 54% being suicides and 43% being murders, with 3% being accidents, as of 2021
It’s so weird to file 18 and 19 year olds under “children”. Aren’t 18+ already considered adults and their lifestyle is going to be more risky than an actual child in grade school?
If you kept it at actual “minors”, I wonder how this data would look.
It’s kind of like saying that car accidents are a major cause of death in children because they drive too fast.
The article discusses this.
Older adolescents, ages 15 to 19, accounted for 82.6% of gun-related deaths in 2021.
Poking around the CDC website adolescence is defined in multiple ways but generally includes ages 12-19, so might be better described as “teens” even though 18+ is a legal adult. I think it’s being treated here as more of a developmental stage than a legal one.
Digging into it by age, from 2018-2021 firearms made up 2,149 out of 22,545 total deaths (~9%) for the age range 5-14 in the US. Looking at 15-19 this increases significantly to 13,321 out of 46,323 total deaths (~29%). This corresponds to increases in both homicide and suicide by firearm for older adolescents.
Quoting this just to make the point that firearms do have differing impacts on younger and older children, and that extends to race and income level as well. But whether guns are the leading cause of death for an age group or not, the end result is the same: more dead kids.
I’m more interested right now in the obvious agenda.
I’m not saying that child death’s aren’t up or that we shouldn’t do more to protect them but when citing data this way, I get the very strong feeling that it’s being made to look worse than it is on purpose. The majority are from suicides and murder fatalities are extreme in the 18-19 year old bracket.
Why on earth does the metric include 18 and 19 year olds as children if not for making something look worse.
The dictionary defines a child as a person between birth and puberty. Or not having attained the age of legal majority.
It’s similar to when a 10 year old gets shot by the police, and then the news conference later has the police referring the 10 year old victim as “a young man” instead of “the child”. Does it not feel like they’re trying to achieve something?
Why on earth does the metric include 18 and 19 year olds as children if not for making something look worse.
Honestly, I tried pretty hard to find a good reason and other than the fact that the CDC groups data into <1, 1-4, 5-9, 10-14, and 15-19 age ranges there’s no real explanation. You could go up to 14, and then get individual year data up to 17/18 whatever the cutoff.
I wouldn’t say it’s totally dishonest because it is baked into the data and the CDC considers them developmentally similar, but I think it also an issue NBC wasn’t too interested in fixing because it makes the article’s argument seem more convincing.
Yeah, it’s misleading. Especially considering the hot topic use of firearms.
Regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, we can agree that data should be free of the organization present here. The discussion isn’t helped by this interpretation of the interpretation and it surely needs helping.
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I’m sorry, but the ability to defend myself and my family isn’t a hobby. It’s what gave my mother the ability to fend off a guy with a knife last year. You want her to fight him off with her bare hands in the parking lot? I had a friend who was almost gang raped by three men in an alley. She now carries a giant gun in her purse and you want her defenseless?
Not everyone has the luxury of police around the corner or to see guns as a hobby like you do. Especially the population of “children” you’re referring to. Let me shed some light for you.
The fact is that these stats aren’t a majority school shootings. These homicides are male inner city black ADULT youth who are given the worst cards in life and they have gotten zero attention. This is gang violence politicized.
The pandemic hit this population hardest and the facts show it here. Look at deaths from ALL types of things and it’s gone up in this particular minority population. It’s disheartening because it’s been like this for decades and people are thinking it would be solved if only you could remove the guns.
The appropriate response is (if you’re not already) supporting programs and services that help people who are suffering from poverty and mental health illness. Not making my family and friends defenseless.
Edit - My mother wanted to add that she also peppered sprayed the guy the week before. He came back.
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It’s the Same Old Same Old “THINK OF THE CHILDREN” authoritarian push to limit the freedoms of the citizenry. Communists, Terrorists, Pedophiles, and Satanists are all coming to get your babies and only Big Brother can save you by restricting your naughty freedoms.
The reality is that if you look at the overall statistics, 99.9999% of children aged 0-18 in the USA are unaffected by gun violence. So I am not compelled to trade any of my freedom for more alleged safety.
The numbers are just weird in that article.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
I am going to read it again and see where their data is sourced.
Of course they not, because its not about the info or the facts, its about the agenda…
Risky lifestyle goes pew pew pew.
They’re dead 18 year olds. If my 18 year old child died, I wouldn’t debate their age or the statistics.
More than 1 accidental death is 1 too many.
I’m not arguing that though. I totally agree that any loss of life is wrong.
And the use of child in your context is different from the use of child in the context of this discussion.
Yes, but only in the US and in war zones. Actually, usually less in war zones.
Nearly two-thirds of the deaths in 2021 were homicides, although unintentional shootings have killed many children. No matter how young the victims, pediatric gun-related deaths have left their mark on nearly every corner of the U.S.
More than 80% of the gun deaths were among males 19 and younger. Black male children were more likely to die from homicide. White males 19 and younger were more likely to kill themselves with guns.
We can see two issues here.
First: Suicide rates are rising sharply among white boys. Why?
Second: Crime is rising sharply for black boys. Why?
Removing guns doesn’t solve the problems leading to suicidal ideation or the problems that lead to homicide. We have the ability to fix those issues without undermining 2A protections. We know that poverty in dense areas is a strong predictor of criminal behavior, and that education is a strong counterbalance to that. We also know that both parties are choking off funding to poor, urban school districts, albeit for different ideological reasons. (Republicans want to cut all public educations. Democrats want to keep school funding local so that property taxes in wealthy areas aren’t funding schools in poor areas, ensuring that wealthy areas have access to better schools.)
Both parties are equally bad, huh?
Democrats want to keep school funding local so that property taxes in wealthy areas aren’t funding schools in poor areas, ensuring that wealthy areas have access to better schools
I’ve seen D’s increasingly propose more state and national funding for schools, exactly the opposite of your claim. That’s in addition to increased state and federal funding for expanding pre-school, for school lunches, for at least some free college
I lived in Chicago. I saw Chicago moving more funding to charter and magnet schools rather than funding schools properly. Charter schools et al. don’t have to take all students, so CPS lost the funding, and still had to take the most difficult cases.
I think that the most rational approach is to, first, eliminate all state funding for private education, charter school, magnet schools, etc., ONLY fund public schools. And second, pool all of the tax revenue state-wide–which means that you also need to make property taxes a state issue rather than a local-school-funding issue–and the divide taxes based on the number of students in each school, with allowances made for differences in costs (e.g., it’s more expensive for a teacher to live in L.A. than it is in Blythe, so there needs to be some kind of allowance for higher teacher pay in L.A. than in Blythe).
Thank you for a well thought out comment. Ita refreshing to read something like this sometimes. Sometimes it feels like everyone is on their own radical side.
I’d also add strickter punishments for the owner of the firearm if it was used in a crime by their child. I have a kid. I plan to buy a gun. If my kid kills someone with my gun, then as far as I’m concerned I’d be directly at fault. In addition to that I think parents should be legally liable for any violent crime their child does. If the parent has the legal authority over their child, they should also be held liable.
My kid is learning to drive and I was surprised he doesn’t need insurance. But the reason is I’m still the “driver” while he is operating the car. Im responsible for issues, my insurance pays any claim, and of course I can’t have a couple beers despite not being behind the wheel. We have an example
Why can’t we model responsible Gun ownership after cars and driving?
Because the right to keep and bear arms is an individual constitutional right. It would be like modeling your right to join and raise your kid in a religion off of licensing requirements for being a doctor. (And hey, religion will fuck kids up for the rest of their lives, even if they manage to escape.)
I have mixed feelings about this, because I can see that it would applied in a racial manner by law-and-order Republicans. E.g., black parents in a high-crime area have a gun for protection–since cops don’t give a shit–kid steals the gun and shoots someone, and there’s an immediate judicial lynching of the parents.
I’m in favor of locking guns up around kids, but I’m generally opposed to laws that mandate it, both because of costs (a gun safe that’s worth a damn easily costs $1500, and a good one starts at about $4500), and because some people–e.g. women that are being stalked–may need to have ready access to a gun at all times.
I completely understand the concern regarding this being applied in a racial manner. I don’t really know how to get around that, though. Any law that could be abused, will be abused, so we should be very careful, but I personally am not knowledgeable enough to come up with a solution. I do think that in the example you’ve provided is valid and can and does happen. But to avoid that we would need a change in culture, and that happens slowly. Maybe stricter punishments for parents of kids that commit crime could lead to a change where people start taking more responsibility for their children. Maybe it’ll lead to just increased incarnation of minorities. I don’t know. I’m glad that I’m not in charge of making those decisions.
Regarding locking guns up and having laws about how to safely store a gun in your own home, I oppose those. I’m willing to accept the risk if the punishment for mishandling them is severe enough. But like I said, I don’t know where that like should be drawn. I think my main point is that I’m for personal responsibility, and we should be encouraging that, instead of removing the choice completely.
But to avoid that we would need a change in culture, and that happens slowly.
Yes, it does. But that’s the real solution.
It’s like getting physically fit; you don’t throw out your television and XBox because you’re fat and sit on your ass instead of going to the gym. You change your habits. The television and XBox are not themselves the problem.
Maybe it’ll lead to just increased incarnation of minorities.
That seems to be the most likely outcome, esp. since prosecutors have fairly broad discretion on charging. I think that making a case for gross negligence would be a different category though, e.g., you knew your child was directly involved in violent criminal behavior and you knowingly left a firearm where you had reason to believe your child could access it easily then you are guilty of being an accessory. But I’d want that bar to be pretty high.
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That’s a bit of a non sequiter, don’t you think? Can you show me where I said that death was a hobby?
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You could have stopped with, “no, I don’t think”.
BTW, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam demonstrate that a sufficiently motivated populace is fully able to resist a tyrannical gov’t.
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really? so the taliban didn’t just immediately take over?
Who do you think the sufficiently motivated populace was? Are you intentionally being dense?
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Gangs have replaced the family unit in many poor areas. Not because the people are more criminal, but because it’s a self reinforcing loop. Anyone who can leaves the area, single parent households are common because many of the fathers are in jail or killed. This leaves Gangs as both a source of male role models and income for children, which leads to more getting killed or jailed.
Gangs use children for higher risk activities, because they get lighter sentences if caught. Kids that do time are then more dependent on gangs for support as legitimate work is harder to find.
Gang violence in the three worst cities in America. Usually the statistics include 19yo. When you remove the three worst cities and 19yo, the statics are similar to the rest of the world.
You can’t just remove cities from statistics for better numbers
Uh, well, you can, and do, remove clear outliers in other statistical sets.
No, you normalize the data to account for the higher density of people.
You can’t just ignore the 3 largest cities because they have more people or higher crime rates.
too many guns
Why the fuck do people feel entitled to carry around literal killing devices on them. They serve no purpose besides murdering someone, and their fantasy of standing up against the government or some shit will literally never happen.
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Then they should probably find a new one.
Ideally, it will be a hobby that doesn’t correlate with mass murder.
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more guns
The obvious solution here is to give children grenade launchers. Trust me, I’m an expert.
I wonder how many children would have died if there were no firearms in private hands???
So let me get this straight. I’m expected to believe more kids are dying from guns than overdose? Based on a “study” that NBC news didn’t even deign to put a citation to in their article?? Iv never met anyone who died of gun violence.Iv And more than 20 who OD’d before turning 18. The verbiage. Not a new study. A “new analysis” of the data that again they dont provide a single citation to. The clear partisan language targeting lack of legislation as the reason for people dying instead of any mention of the real issue. Mental health.
Its NBC news. I dont expect real journalism from these guys.
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Gun homicides committed on 17-year olds 2018-2021 = 1,659
Gun deaths for ages 1-19 2018-2021 = 15,803
Source: https://wonder.cdc.gov/Deaths-by-Underlying-Cause.htmlSo even if we disregard your rampant disrespect for the lives of children, you have successfully described (at most) a little over 10% of child gun deaths, so I’m sure the families of the other 90% will totally agree with you.
Shut up!
But what about the drag queens??
Firearms have no place in a household. Anybody who defends it is just a closeted gun nut.
