Tag: scary numbers

Cherry-Picking

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Or just plain lying.

First, read SayUncle’s Quote of the Day.

Then, read Joe Huffman’s Quote of the Day.

Then, read the article Joe’s QotD comes from.

The specific bit I’d like to point out from an article ostensibly about the accidental death of an eight-year-old is this:

Data collected by the Centre For Disease Control And Prevention shows that on an average day, three American children die in gun accidents or suicides.

(Emphasis mine.)

Are they intimating here that young Christopher Bizilj intentionally shot himself?

I went to the CDC’s WISQARS site to check on their statistics.  Let’s stipulate that “children” are 17 years old or younger.  Accidental deaths by firearm for children up through 17 years of age for the year 2007 (latest data available):  112.  Suicide by firearm for children up through 17 years of age for the same year:  325.  Combined, 437.

Four hundred thirty-seven divided by three hundred sixty-five is (carry the one):  not quite 1.2 per day.

Not three (3).  Not two (2).  One point two.

And to get THAT number, they have to combine accidents AND SUICIDES, where suicides represent THREE QUARTERS of the total.

I have to ask again:  The real numbers are bad enough – why must they inflate them?

(Edited to add)  More of the same here:

Meanwhile, the shootings continue – more than 30,000 deaths a year, most of them individual killings that are barely reported,

That’s because more than half of them are suicides, by definition “individual killings” that don’t merit much reporting seeing that the US is firmly in the middle-of-the-road for suicide rates, and at the lower-end for high GDP nations.

Well, it’s Better Than 4,000

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Once again our anti-gun opponents drag out scaaaary numbers! to motivate the herd. This time, courtesy of Xrlq via Uncle, we get the latest on the home-front numbers propounded by Momlogic:

Gun Accidents Kill 500 Kids Each Year

Advice every parent needs to hear about firearm safety.

This week, an 8-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister in California.

“It’s a tragic case of a sibling who picked up a firearm, thinking it was a toy, pointed it at his sister and discharged one round from the firearm, striking her in the head,” said Vacaville Police Sgt. Charlie Spruill.

But these aren’t freak accidents. More than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshots. Some shoot themselves, while others kill friends or siblings after discovering a gun.

Here are more scary stats: Americans own 200 million firearms, and 35 percent of homes contain at least one gun. Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns.

There’s more, but this is enough.

The part I’ve emphasized in bold? It’s a lie.

It’s a blatant, bold-faced lie.

It’s also not an isolated incident. It’s not even uncommon. For example, I have more than once pointed to a March 2000 Salon article by Jean Hanff Korelitz, What a few good women can do (still available on the site, you’ll note) where she states in no uncertain terms:

And what about the more than 4,000 children who die in gun-related accidents each year? That’s 11 kids a day. And we’re not talking about crimes, or intentional shootings. We’re talking — or not talking enough — about accidents.

Korelitz says it’s 4,000 a year. Ten years later, Momlogic says it’s 500.

Why aren’t we celebrating the eight-fold reduction in accidental gunshot deaths of children?

Because they’re lying to you. Remember, they’re The Other Side.

So what are the real numbers? Well, let’s go back to the first excerpt where Momlogic‘s piece states:

Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns.

Wow. 1.7 million potential accidental gunshot deaths, each and every day. But I repeat this line to illustrate that the writer of the Momlogic piece is aware of the Centers for Disease Control. This might lead one to believe that the author could be aware of the CDC’s WISQARS tools. The Momlogic piece insists that the accidental death toll is 500 children a year. Let’s stipulate that “accident” means “unintentional,” and “children” are legally defined as seventeen years old or less. How many children died of accidental gunshot in 2006 (latest available data)?

One hundred and two. (102!)

That’s a factor of FIVE fewer than the headline states.

Well! What about 2005?

127

2004? 105.

2003? 102.

2002?!? 115.

What about when Ms. Korelitz was decrying the “fact” that we “weren’t talking enough” about the “more than 4,000 children who die in gun-related accidents each year”?

Here’s the available CDC data (you trust the .gov, right?) tabulated from 1990 up through 2006:

2006: 102
2005: 127
2004: 105
2003: 102
2002: 115
2001: 125
2000: 150
1999: 158
1998: 207
1997: 247
1996: 272
1995: 330
1994: 403
1993: 392
1992: 378
1991: 419
1990: 417

Not 4,000. Not 500. Two hundred seventy-two in 1996 (four years before Ms. Korelitz wrote her piece) and 102 in 2006 (four years before the Momlogic piece).

Two questions:

Each and every one of those deaths is a tragedy for the family or families involved. Why aren’t the actual numbers ever enough for our opponents? Why must they inflate them?

And why aren’t we CELEBRATING a four-fold reduction in the accidental gunshot deaths of children over the past twenty years even as well over 60 million new guns have entered circulation during that same period? Remember: supposedly there are 1.7 MILLION households with loaded, unsecured firearms in them that children could be exposed to. I’d say that an annual accidental gunshot death toll of 102 is damned near miraculously small, especially given the fact that 509 children under the age of five died of accidental drowning in 2006 alone.

One more: Why hasn’t Salon or Ms. Korelitz ever published a retraction of her absurd assertion? (Never mind. That last one was rhetorical.)

In a Related Story…

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David Codrea of The War On Guns has a now long-running theme of “The Only Ones,” having to do with police officers or other government employees doing things with guns that ought not be done. This goes back to the incident where undercover DEA officer Lee Paige, during a “gun safety” demonstration before a room full of kids and their parents, uttered the immortal phrase, “I’m the only one in this room professional enough, that I know of, to carry this Glock .40.”

Right before he shot himself in the thigh with it.

On video. Which was then posted to the internet.

Well, in researching Scaaaary Numbers!, I found another classic case:

Officers Released From Hospital After Accidental Shooting In The Bronx

Two of the four police officers involved in a friendly fire incident in the Bronx Sunday morning have been released from the hospital.

The officers were called to Concord Avenue and ran into Cookie the pit bull after a teenager they were chasing ran into a nearby apartment.

Police say the dog attacked the officer and at least one of the cops opened fire, killing the dog. In the confusion, 3 of the 4 officers were also shot. The other was bitten by the dog. None of the injuries was considered life threatening.

Lenin Acevedo, 17, later turned himself in. He’s charged with trespassing and criminal possession of marijuana.

The two other officers are listed in stable condition.

I have to assume that the one cop who didn’t catch a round was probably the only one firing.

Wildly. While being bitten by the dog.

Hell, he might have shot himself. Who knows?

It’s a good thing cops go through all that rigorous training so that we can trust them with all that firepower, isn’t it? Like the LA Sheriff’s Deputies that fired 120+ rounds at a suspect and managed only to wound him. And another Deputy. Or the cops who fired 28 rounds at Thomas Martin McGouey.

It wasn’t fair, though.

He’d painted a bullseye on his bare chest.

But one round did graze his shoulder! No police officers were injured during this shooting, at least. McGouey blames credits God.

Apparently he doesn’t follow this kind of stuff.

Edited to add: Dammit, David beat me to it!

Scaaaary Numbers!

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A reader of Kim’s site sent him an interesting bit of information. It seems that the Queens, New York DA gave a press release about some guys who were arrested for possession of cocaine and a “cop killer” gun. The gun in question is a Fabrique Nationale FN Five-seveN (yes, that’s the correct capitalization). It fires the 5.7×28 cartridge, essentially a hot .22 Magnum. But the story, which went out as an AP piece taken apparently pretty much verbatim from the Queens DA’s press release had this to say, as reported by Newsday on July 20:

3 Queens men charged with possessing cop killer gun

July 20, 2006, 10:26 PM EDT

NEW YORK — Three men have been charged with illegally possessing two handguns, one of which is called a cop killer because it can break through most bulletproof vests and plates worn by police officers, prosecutors announced Thursday.

William Davis, 21, his brother Clarence Davis, 18, and their friend Gquan Lloyd, 18, all of Queens, were charged with multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon, District Attorney Richard A. Brown said.

During the execution of a narcotics search warrant Wednesday at the apartment the men shared in Far Rockaway, police found a defaced, unloaded Fabrique Nationale Five-seveN semiautomatic handgun, the first recovery of such a weapon in the city, Brown said.

“Its presence is troubling and makes the job of street cops that much more dangerous,” Brown said.

Of the 616 police officers killed nationwide between 1994 and 2003, 425 were shot with FN 5.7s, Brown said.

The FN 5.7, which comes from Belgium, has a 20-round magazine, and its bullets can penetrate 48 layers of Kevlar, the material used in bulletproof vests.

Police also discovered a loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun and an eighth of an ounce of cocaine during the search, prosecutors said.

The three arrested men, who also were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, were being held and were expected to be arraigned in Queens Criminal Court, prosecutors said.

It wasn’t clear if the men had retained lawyers before their arraignment. There was no telephone listing for them at the home address provided by the district attorney’s office.

The men each could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Kim’s reader took exception to DA Richard Brown’s insistence that A) 616 police officers were killed during the period from 1994 to 2003, and B) that 425 of those were killed with FN Five-seveN pistols. Kim’s reader found the story at the website for NY1.com, and wrote them a protest email. To their credit, the VP of news at NY1.com did respond:

You are right. The statistics are wrong and we are removing the story from our website. For what it’s worth, the number were cited by Queens D.A. Richard Brown at his press conference. The other information in the story also came from the D.A. While we tend to give credit to law enforcement sources for knowing what they are talking about, we should have realized that the statistics didn’t make any sense.

Thanks for the feedback.

Steve Paulus
VP, News

And they did indeed pull the story. No retraction, but at least it’s not there anymore.

It is, however, at several other sites. For example, the site I linked to above, which is Newsday‘s. It was also carried by the TimesLedger, but the TimesLedger has apparently yanked it and posted the DA’s “revision”:

Queens DA revises release about powerful handgun
By Stephen Stirling

The Queens district attorney’s office said Monday “a miscommunication” was to blame for inaccurate information it released in a press release last Thursday that was quoted in a TimesLedger story on the newspaper’s Web site Friday.
The DA’s office issued the press release about the July 19 arrest of three Far Rockaway youths, who were allegedly found in possession of a bag of cocaine and a powerful handgun, the Belgian-made Fabrique Nationale (FN) 5.7. In the release, the DA said that 425 of the 616 officers killed in the line of duty between 1994 and 2003 had been killed with the FN 5.7.

“There was a miscommunication between the officer and the prosecutor of the case,” said DA spokesman Kevin Ryan. “The statement should have read that 425 officers were killed with a handgun, not with this handgun.”

Of course, this was just a minor “miscommunication,” taking nothing away from the real story:

The TimesLedger story elicited a number of e-mails and phone calls from Web readers around the country who questioned the DA’s claim that the officers had been killed by the FN 5.7. The DA said Monday that both the press release and the criminal complaint filed in Queens Criminal Court last Thursday have subsequently been changed to reflect the proper information, but the discovery of the gun in Far Rockaway was still a concern.

“The FN 5.7 is a lethal handgun imported from Belgium and capable of easily penetrating most police vets(sic) and plates,” DA Brown said in last week’s release. “While this is the first time that such a deadly weapon has been recovered in New York City, its presence is troubling and makes the job of street cops that much more dangerous.”

The revised press release retained Brown’s statement about the FN 5.7, which has only been available on the commercial market since 2004.

OOPS! That makes it pretty hard for it to be responsible for any officer deaths prior to 2004, doesn’t it?

The DA’s original release also raised questions about how powerful the rounds fired by the FN 5.7 can be. A deposition given by Detective Marques Stewart of the 100th Precinct last Thursday said the FN 5.7 is referred to as a “cop-killer” because it can be fired from up to 100 yards with a great degree of accuracy and because the bullet it fires travels at more than 2,000 feet per second, making it capable of penetrating most police vests and plates.

Vests? Maybe. But probably not at 100 yards. Plates? Not bloody likely. Plates are designed to stop rifle bullets. Just another little “miscommunication?”

According a report issued by the company that sells and markets the handgun in the United States, FNH USA, the only type of ammunition compatible with the FN 5.7 sold for commercial use in the United States is the SS196 bullet, which was found to be non-armor piercing by the FBI’s Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 2005. The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms report said the SS196 had been classified as “not armor piercing ammunition under federal firearms statutes.” The FBI unit report said the SS192 bullet, which also can be fired by the FN 5.7, did pierce level IIA kevlar vests, which are widely used by police officers in the United States.

I’ve covered armor-piercing ammo and National Institute of Justice ballistic vest protection levels before. A Level IIA vest is designed to stop a 9mm or .40 S&W round. It will not stop a .357 Magnum or heavier caliber. A Type IIIA is designed to do that, and up to a .44 Magnum.

Is SS192 “armor piercing” and “highly accurate” ammo capable of a blistering 2000 feet per second! really all that? According to Wikipedia, the SS192 round fires a 28 grain aluminum-core projectile. To give you some comparison, the standard bullet used in .22 Long Rifle rimfire rounds weighs at least 32 grains. The standard military ball used in M-16 rifles is a 62 grain bullet. The “Standard Duty” round for the 5.7×28, which is designed to penetrate light plate armor, is the SS190 – and is not available for public purchase. The SS190 projectile weighs 32 grains. The muzzle energy of the SS192 is 260 ft.-lbs out of the Five-seveN. The muzzle energy of the SS190 is 315 ft.-lbs.

The muzzle energy of CCI Blazer 115 grain 9mm ammo is about 340 ft.-lbs.

CCI’s 158 grain .357 Magnum Blazer load has a muzzle energy of 535 ft.-lbs. And it’ll go through a Level IIA vest, too.

So, tell me again how powerful the Five-seveN is? The DA tried to make it sound like the next .44 Magnum. Remember, it’s a cop killer “because it can break through most bulletproof vests and plates worn by police officers”. Vests and plates. But you don’t get plates in ballistic armor until you reach NIJ Type III vests, which are designed to stop rifle bullets. The Type IIIA does not have plates, and the SS192 can’t penetrate a IIIA vest.

While FNH USA has said that the SS192 is no longer imported for commercial sale in the United States, the Queens DA was recently informed by FBI officials that successful commercial purchases of SS192 munitions were made by the agency at a munitions outlet in Virginia, Ryan said. FNH USA did not immediately return calls for comment.

Well, the FBI, being a Federal department, can still purchase SS192 ammo. Don’t know why they’d want to, they can get SS190. And though ammo dealers are no longer importing SS192, I’m not sure that remaining inventory is illegal to sell publicly. But I doubt gang-bangers know where to get it.

The controversy stems from a court-authorized police raid of the Far Rockaway home of William Davis, 21, brother Clarence Davis, 18, and friend Gquan Lloyd, 18, on the morning of July 19, Brown’s office said. Police said they found a FN 5.7 handgun along with another less-powerful handgun and a bag of cocaine.

Kudos to the TimesLedger! It got most of the salient points right, including the the fact that SS192 ammo is no longer imported. You can only get ballistic-tip and softpoint ammo for the 5.7×28 now, unless (apparently) you know exactly where to shop.

And it was also the only news source that bothered.

The story was also carried, as noted, by Newsday. On July 21 they issued a revised version – no mention of police officer deaths, no clarification about the ammunition or gun manufacturing history, nada – with no explanation.

The Staten Island Advance did the same thing. The original press release was reported on July 20, the revised one posted on July 21. No explanation, no retraction, no additional information.

Radio station 1010AM posted the press release on July 20. The currently posted version doesn’t have the “425 officers killed by” scaaaary number, so I assume they just erased the original and posted the revision without bothering to change anything, including the date.

Note also that this story is an AP release. Hard to tell how many dead-tree publications printed the original story verbatim, or how many people out there now believe that this one gun is responsible for the deaths of 425 police officers.

Boy, it’s a good thing the mainstream media has all those checks and balances that the blogosphere lacks, isn’t it? And professional journalists who can cut-and-paste from press releases with the best of them! I’m awed by what journalism schools teach that we poor ignorant pajama-clad bloggers lack.

They Never EVER Stop

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Part Who-the-Hell-Can-Keep-UP?

Via David Codrea’s War on Guns comes this mendacious and malicious op-ed from the Strib:

Guns at work/A recipe for danger, not defense
September 19, 2005

Neil Mahmoud had every reason to live. Newly married and on the verge of a career as a computer programmer, the 23-year-old student saw little peril in his job at an Apple Valley convenience store. The job entailed ejecting the occasional troublemaker, of course, and just this July Mahmoud tossed out two young men who tried to rob the place with a pellet gun.

Good thing they didn’t have a real gun. Or a knife. Or a crowbar. Or a really bad attitude (it was two against one.)

But the neighborhood was regarded as supremely safe, and locals were shocked late last month when Mahmoud was found on the shop floor bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. How could such horror invade a tranquil town?

It invaded not because a criminal came to call, but because the store’s owner had recently purchased a gun. The weapon was meant to deter robbers and protect employees, but — as too often is the case — ended up underwriting a tragedy. The person who shot Mahmoud, police have determined, wasn’t an intruder. All evidence suggests that Mahmoud shot himself — accidentally.

The accident may seem a fluke, a rare and unfortunate happenstance hardly worth a second thought.

That’s because in this case it is a fluke. If it were common, you wouldn’t be reading about it in an op-ed. Man-bites-dog. If-it-bleeds-it-leads.

In truth, Mahmoud’s needless death vividly illustrates the folly of counting on guns for safety.

Right. An absolute minimum of 68,000 defensive gun uses per year, but “counting on guns for safety” is “folly.” Tell that to the Algiers Point Militia. Tell it to Joyce Cordoba.

But the first mendacity:

Thousands of accidental gun deaths occur in this country every year.

Thousands? As in “In excess of two thousand?”

No.

The editorialist just lied to you. According to the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS tool the number of accidental gunshot deaths in 2002 was 762. In 2001 it was 802. In 2000, 776. In 1999, 824. That’s quite a few, but those aren’t scary numbers like the vague “thousands” that could imply 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 or more are they?

The key to reducing the number is clear.

Of course it is! “Reduce the number of guns!“

More than a decade ago, a study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that private gun ownership heightens a household’s risk of homicide threefold and raises the likelihood of suicide five times above that of a gun-free household.

That’s our friend Dr. Arthur Kellermann’s study. I discuss Dr. Kellermann in This is the Kind of Thing that REALLY IRRITATES ME, from June of 2003. (See why I say they never EVER stop?) Note the logical fallacy of correlation = causation. If you own a gun, it will cause you to suicide or become a victim of homicide. Not that you might own a gun because you live in a dangerous neighborhood, or you purchase a gun because you have suicidal feelings. Oh no. The evil mind-altering waves given off by firearms are the cause of Bad Things Happening.

The Joyce Cordoba link above relates the following:

Former assistant district attorney and firearms expert David Kopel writes: “When a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery — from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing — produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success.”

What do “gun control activists” say?

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Web site displays this oft-quoted “fact”: “The risk of homicide in the home is 3 times greater in households with guns.” Their Web site fails to mention that Arthur Kellermann, the “expert” who came up with that figure, later backpedaled after others discredited his studies for not following standard scientific procedures.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kellermann now concedes, “A gun can be used to scare away an intruder without a shot being fired,” admitting he failed to include such events in his original study. “Simply keeping a gun in the home,” Mr. Kellermann says, “may deter some criminals who fear confronting an armed homeowner.”

He adds, “It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide — i.e., in a limited number of cases, people may have acquired a gun in response to a specific threat.”

That op-ed was signed. By Larry Elder. Back to Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous:

In short, having a gun close at hand is generally more dangerous than not having one. Plain logic suggests that this is true not just on the home front but in the workplace as well — and research bears out the speculation. Workplace violence has become an American commonplace, and those who study it insist that blessing the presence of guns on the job can only bring more bloodshed.

Got some cites? Names of “those who study it”? Another example of argument by “appeal to authority” – anonymous authority. “Take my word for it! I’m unbiased!”

“Workplace violence” seems to be a new stick with which to beat the gun-control drum, attempting to frighten people into defenselessness, but read the FBI’s 2004 report Workplace Violence (an 80-page PDF file) where it reports that from 1993-1999 there were an average of 900 workplace homicides annually (more than the average number of accidental deaths by gunshot) and

(V)iolence by criminals otherwise unconnected to the workplace accounts for the vast majority – nearly 80 percent – of workplace homicides. In these incidents, the motive is usually theft, and in a great many cases, the criminal is carrying a gun or other weapon, increasing the likelihood that the victim will be killed or seriously wounded. This type of violence falls heavily on particular occupational groups whose jobs make them vulnerable: taxi drivers (the job that carries by far the highest risk of being murdered), late-night retail or gas station clerks, and others who are on duty at night, who work in isolated locations or dangerous neighborhoods, and who carry or have access to cash.

Robbery. Not accident. Victims like Mr. Mahmoud, even though his Stop-and-Rob was in a good neighborhood.

More than that, however, is this little tidbit:

As the total number of guns in circulation has gone up, as the total number of people with concealed-carry licenses has done likewise, workplace homicide has been declining. I’m not arguing correlation = causation. I’m arguing the opposite. More guns does not equal more death.

But this guy is.

As researcher Dean Schaner has argued in a book about employer liability, “It is far more foreseeable that an employee will be injured in a workplace full of guns and an environment reminiscent of the Old West, than one in which weapons are prohibited.”

And here we have an invokation of Ravenwood’s Law: “As a discussion about guns grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Dodge City or the Wild West approaches one.”

All tragedies give rise to a flood of “if onlies.” Surely all who cared for Neil Mahmoud are consumed with thoughts about how his life might have been saved. Yet such thoughts should preoccupy not just those mourning this charming young man, but all Minnesotans. This tragedy teaches a lesson to which employers — and all of us — should hold fast: To keep the workplace safe, banish weapons.

Right. So only the criminals and disgruntled employees can have a “safe working environment.”

Sell it somewhere else. The American public isn’t buying it. They’re buying guns.

Propaganda

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noun: Ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause

Yes, I’m aware that it’s done on both sides of this issue, but some of it is so blatant and amateurish it really shocks me that they do it. Take for example this October 2002 press release from Commonsense about Kids and Guns (it’s a Word file):

Kennedy: Still Too Many Preventable Gun Accidents and Suicides

New Data Shows 58% Increase in Accidental Shootings of Small Children

Washington, DC — Gun accidents and suicides took the lives of 1,200 children and teens**, plus an additional 18,358 kids 0-19 years-old were injured by a firearm and 1,776 were killed in homicides, according to new mortality and injury data released by the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics and National Center for Injury Prevention and Control for the year 2000.

These findings were reported by Victoria Reggie Kennedy, president of the nonpartisan group Common Sense about Kids and Guns, on the three-year anniversary of the group’s founding.

“The reality is that many of these accidents, suicides, and injuries were preventable, if only the firearm in question had been properly stored: unloaded and locked,” stated Kennedy, quoting two of the six safety tips of her non-profit group.

“Common Sense about Kids and Guns is encouraged that overall rates of gun deaths have declined for the sixth straight year,” said Kennedy. “We applaud the responsible adults who followed our Common Sense Safety Tips and assured that no child or teen encountered a loaded or improperly stored firearm in their home.”

“But there is still more that needs to be done: among 0-4 year olds, accidental shootings actually increased a startling 58%!” declared Kennedy. “This is simply tragic. We must take personal responsibility to make certain guns are inaccessible to these very young children.”

“Without any exaggeration, the way a gun is stored can be a matter of life and death for our children,” Kennedy said. “Studies show that approximately 75% of all firearm-related accidents and suicides involving children and teens, and many homicides, are committed with a firearm found at home, or the home of a relative or friend.”

At the heart of the Common Sense about Kids and Guns message is parental responsibility. “A responsible adult cannot rely on a child or teenager not to touch a gun, merely because they have been told not to do so,” continued Kennedy. “It is impossible to predict what children, teenagers, and their friends will do, and the risks of mishandling a gun are too great to place the burden of responsibility on anyone other the adult bringing the gun into the home.”

Common Sense about Kids and Guns has developed six simple safety tips that have been endorsed by organizations from the National SAFE KIDS Campaign to the National Shooting Sport Foundation to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Whether or not someone decides to keep a gun
at home, Common Sense urges all adults to follow these steps to protect kids from gun deaths and injuries:

All gun owners must:
1) unload and lock up their guns;
2) lock and store ammunition separately; and
3) keep keys and combinations where kids are unable to find them.
All parents must:
4) ask if guns are safely stored at places their kids visit or play;
5) talk with their kids about guns; and
6) teach young children not to touch guns and to tell an adult if they find one.

“There are still many complex issues that lead to gun violence in our society – issues that we must address in a serious way,” concluded Kennedy. “But right now, if adults act responsibly and follow these six simple steps, we can continue to reduce the number of tragedies involving kids and guns. And remember, the child you save may be your own.”

Now, I don’t have a lot of problems with this piece.* The facts are actually factual, and the suggestions recommendations demands listed at the bottom aren’t really out of line (except I’ll decide whether to keep a firearm loaded in my house. It’s my responsibilty to make sure that the kids in my house don’t have access to one.) But let’s look at the part I highlighted, the 58% increase!

Damn if that’s not a scary number!

It’s propaganda – see definition above.

It is, indeed, factual. If you look at the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS tools it will tell you that in 2000 there were nineteen (19) children between the ages of 0 and 4 who died by unintentional gunshot, and that was indeed a 58% increase over 1999’s twelve (12).

But I somehow doubt that Commonsense reported on the 37% decrease between 1998 and 1999, when the number went from NINETEEN to twelve. Or the 50% decrease between 1994 and 1996 when the number went from thirty-four (34!) to seventeen (17).

The fact is that over the period between 1995 and 2000 the average has hovered about 20 per year.

Yes, that’s too many. Yes it’s tragic. Yes, it’s almost entirely due to irresponsible parents who left guns where someone (not always a toddler) could get to them.

But how about some perspective?

What about the 46 children from 0 to 4 years old who died by accidental poisoning in 2000?

Or the 44 who died in falls?

Or the 568 who drowned?

Where are the people urging legislation to stop these deaths due to irresponsible parents?

NOTE: The organization Commonsense about Kids and Guns is not a lobbying body. It restricts itself to “advocat(ing) personal action, rather than government action, in ending gun deaths” as commenter Mays succinctly put it. At least I’ve seen no evidence to the contrary.

It was not my intention to suggest that Commonsense was another Violence Policy Center or Brady Campaign, but on reflection it certainly could appear that way (and understandably, given my obvious, stated bias), and I apologize if it was so interpreted. (But this does point out the difference between intentionally misleading someone and accidentally doing so.)

*I take issue with the idea that teen suicides would be affected, but that’s another topic.

**See this piece for commentary on the combining of accident and suicide statistics to ensure scary numbers.

How do they WRITE this Stuff With a Straight Face?

KevinLeave a comment

(From the Cincinnati Enquirer)

How many more Javontays must die?

Two school buses let children out in front of an apartment building on Linn Street. Across the street, in front of a dwelling bearing burglar bars and an electronic door gate, the bereft mother of a slain 7-year-old keened.

Javonna Williams’ eyes were dry. But her tears flowed through the words she shouted to the street, to no one in particular.

“They don’t know what they’ve done,” she said. “I was there. I saw his pain. He was in pain.”

Little Javontay died Monday night, police said, after a child playing with a gun in a Mount Airy townhouse shot him in the chest.

It was an accident, police believe, but it’s hard to piece together the facts.

People aren’t telling police everything, including who owned several guns police found at the apartment.

What is clear is a neighborhood is missing one friendly little boy who used to ride his bike and build imaginary forts in a store parking lot next to his home.

Kevin Milline, who owns the grocery store, said Javontay’s mother wouldn’t let him or his 3-year-old sister play in a neighborhood tot lot a block away, because drug dealers had taken it over.

“It’s too dangerous,” Milline said.

Javontay’s West End neighborhood has drug problems, as does the neighborhood he visited in Mount Airy. There have been shootings and assaults in both in recent months.

But carelessness, not drugs, killed Javontay. Some adult let kids find the guns.

How do we as a community reduce the chances of that happening again?

Gee, I don’t know. How about cracking down on the drug dealers? Or, sparing that, how about ending the “War on (some) Drugs” and taking the profitability out of the trade?

Our children are over-exposed to guns – even in low-crime neighborhoods. It is estimated that 40 percent of American households have firearms in them; 30 percent of those guns are unlocked and loaded, according to Common Sense About Kids And Guns, a national group.

A statistic that:

A) Ignores the fact that the percentage of American households with firearms in them hasn’t changed significantly for over fifty years (except, possibly to go down,) and

B) The total number of accidental deaths by firearm (not just rate per 100,000 population) has been declining ever since we started keeping records.

This is part of the “more guns equals more death” meme.

Nationally, 1,200 kids and teens die from gun accidents and suicides annually. Another 18,000 or more are injured.

As I’ve illustrated before, removing a method does not affect overall suicide rates. Australia has suffered a dramatic increase in teen suicide in the last few years. Method? Asphyxiation.

Here’s the facts on accidental firearm death for “kids and teens” up through 17 year-olds:

Year Deaths

2000 150
1999 158
1998 207
1997 247
1996 272
1995 330
1994 403

Shall I go on? And remember, during that time the number of guns in private hands has increased by over three million per year – about a third of which were handguns.

WE ARE “DOING SOMETHING.”

The problem is, the gun banners control forces define “DOING SOMETHING” as “passing new gun control laws.” Nothing else qualifies.

You won’t hear them talk about the dramatic decrease in accidental deaths. Instead, they will attach suicides to the total in order to keep the numbers as high (and emotion-grabbing) as possible.

Javontay’s case is unusual because he died in an inner-city neighborhood, said Dr. Rebeccah Brown, a pediatric surgeon and assistant director for the trauma unit at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

“I don’t think of (accidental shootings) as being an inner-city problem. Usually it’s kids whose dads are hunters and who find the gun.”

Sweet freaking Jebus. No, Doctor, you don’t think of accidental shootings as being an inner-city problem because you’re overwhelmed by deliberate shootings. Accidental shootings – especially of small children – are quite rare everywhere.

In 10 years, Children’s has treated 127 gunshot wounds in children; most between the ages of 10 and 14.

And how many of them were deliberately inflicted as in, say, drive-bys? (Or are they going to redefine getting hit in a drive-by as an “accident?”)

“Chances are your children have been somewhere or played somewhere where there’s a firearm,” said Tracy Cook, executive director of ProKids, which helps abused kids.

The usual precautionary warnings – don’t mix kids with guns; lock up your weapon; keep ammunition separate – still apply, even with stolen guns, she said.

“Just because you purchase a gun illegally doesn’t mean you can’t put a lock on it. Who wants a kid to die?”

No one wanted Javontay to die.

Through family members, Javonna Williams declined to be interviewed for this column. As neighbors and relatives encircled her, she rocked back and forth.

If those who know something about this accident could only see her pain, I bet they’d give police the information they seek about the guns police found in the apartment Javontay visited.

And if the rest of us are realistic about the chances for more accidental shootings – we’d do whatever it takes to keep kids away from guns.

This is the mentality. Just pass another law. The people willing to steal or acquire a gun illegally will follow that one!

I am not often dumbstruck by the mental processes of the gun grabbers controllers, but this one floored me. I cannot fathom the “logic” here.

(Update: Kevin McGehee advises: “Don’t try to comprehend the logic of gun grabbers controllers. It’s like mud wrestling with a pig — you only wind up getting dirty, and the pig likes it.” I can’t help myself, Kevin. I’m an engineer – I’m unable to believe that some people are incapable of logic.)

JoinTogether Really is Shameless

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In this bit of propaganda, JoinTogether promotes having the Consumer Safety Commission regulate “gun safety” because:

more than 20,000 Americans under age 20 (are) killed or injured each year by guns

Once again, what are the facts?

According to the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS tool, in 2000 there were 6,706 unintentional non-fatal gunshot injuries for people 19 years of age and younger, and 193 accidental gunshot fatalities for the same demographic.

That’s 6,899 accidental deaths and injuries for “children” under the age of 20. If you drop the age of the “children” to 18, the numbers are 5,232 and 174 respectively, for a total of 5,406. The rest of the deaths and injuries are intentional – and “gun safety” won’t affect those unless (as I’m sure they mean it) “gun safety” means “guns that won’t fire.”

The blurb also states:

The report found that up to one-third of unintentional shootings could be prevented by changing gun designs, or adding features such as devices that keep guns from firing when dropped or indicate when the gun is loaded.

Riiiight. One-third (2,922 approximately) could be prevented if all NEW guns had the features they suggest? What about all the OLD guns out there? This is simplistic in the extreme.

But then, that’s the strategy, isn’t it? Take the statistics, warp them to suit, and make simplistic attention-grabbing arguments. Then claim everyone who calls you on it as a heartless gun-lover who wants to see babies die.

This is the kind of crap that made me an activist.

This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME

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The organization Doctors Against Handgun Injury has produced a pamphlet that YOUR doctor can give you to help you recognize the dangers of keeping a firearm in your home. It’s an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, entitled Is Your Family Safe? It’s a two-page tri-fold, made up of little soundbite-sized blurbs of statistics and recommendations. Mixed in with a little reasonably good advice, is a lot of (I believe) intentionally misleading statistics, which I will illustrate here. I’m not going to quote the whole thing, just selected parts.

Why having a gun in the home is a problem

Well! Let’s just start off with a blatent assertion! We’re doctors, after all, and the only difference between a doctor and God is that God doesn’t believe he’s a doctor!

Having a gun in the home IS a problem? Not “may be” a problem? Not “can be” a problem? Not “is sometimes” a problem? Only “IS” a problem? When some 40% of households in this country have a firearm in them?

Next:

Doctors treat the victims of gun violence every day. We want to reduce the number of deaths and injuries and prevent you and your family from being a statistic.

• 16,599 Americans used a gun to commit suicide in 1999

While suicidal thoughts may be fairly constant, the decision to act on those thoughts is usually brief – often fading within just a few seconds or minutes. If a gun is available, that is enough time for thought to turn to action.

Ah, yes, the “guns are the cause of suicide” argument. Except they don’t tell you some other interesting information. Yes indeed, according to CDC statistics 16,599 Americans did kill themselves with firearms in 1999. Another 12,764 killed themselves by other means. The total number of suicides was 29,350, and the rate per 100,000 population was 10.66.

That puts the United States, with its 200,000,000+ firearms, over 65 MILLION of which are handguns firmly in the MIDDLE OF THE PACK for suicide internationally. If firearms actually cause suicide, then our population should have offed itself a few generations ago. Let’s look at some comparitives, shall we?

Japan, a nation with a population of about 126,600,000 in 1999, a little less than half our own, suffered 31,385 suicides – a rate of 24.8 per hundred thousand population. And there are essentially NO privately owned firearms in Japan. Even Japanese police officers leave their firearms at work when they go home. The Japanese kill themselves by asphyxiation (either by hanging or car exhaust) or by jumping off of buildings or in front of moving trains. To be fair, Japan’s suicide rates have skyrocketed with their recent economic downturn (it would appear that a bad economy represents a much higher risk of suicide than individual ownership of a firearm.) On average, the suicide rate in Japan has run at about 17 per 100,000. Considerably higher than the U.S. but not more than double.

But most people are aware of the high rate of suicide in Japan, and dismiss it as being “cultural.” Are they also aware, however, of the suicide rates in France? According to this CDC report from 1998, France had a suicide rate of 21 per 100,000. Leading method? Suffocation. France is followed closely by Denmark with a suicide rate of 18 per 100,000. Leading method? Pretty much evenly split between suffocation and poisoning.

According to this table, in 1997 of the eleven countries with the top per capita Gross National Products (the US ranks in the middle), the US has the second lowest suicide rate. Only the Netherlands was lower. See the chart:


Yup. All those guns CAUSE suicide. But the pamphlet reinforces this claim:

• 10,828 Americans died in firearm homicides in 1999

The presence of a gun in the home triples the risk of homicide and increases the risk of suicide fivefold.

The source of this assertion? “Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership” from the New England Journal of Medicine, August 13, 1992. Primary author? Dr. Arthur Kellermann of Emory University, and staunch defender of thorougly discredited history professor Michael Bellisiles. They were, after all, both professors at Emory, and they are both apparently practicing deliberate mendacity when it comes to firearms statistics.

Dr. Kellermann is also the source of the “43 to 1” claim of guns in the home being more deadly to the occupants than to criminals. The organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership (an admittedly biased group) produced this excellent piece: Disarming the Data Doctors: How to Debunk the “Public Health” Basis for “Gun Control” where it disassembled that “study.” Kellermann’s biased research resulted in Congress pulling $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget in 1997 – precisely the amount the CDC had spent on the National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control research into gun-related injury – because of blatant bias in their research. This article by Dr. Miguel Faria on that topic is worth the read. Dr. Faria is Editor-Emeritus of The Medical Sentinel of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and a neurosurgeon. This piece entitled “Guns in the Medical Literature – A Failure of Peer Review” by Dr. Edgar A. Suter of the Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy is also a good one.

Pardon me if I take Dr. Kellermann’s statistics with a grain pound of salt. I wish everyone would, but with government funding and backing from the CDC and journals such as the NEJM, his numbers are the ones repeated in citation after citation as “fact.”

Next:

• 824 Americans died from unintentional firearm incidents during 1999

THIS is the part that REALLY CHAPS MY ASS. Indeed, in 1999 the CDC reports that there were 824 unintentional firearms deaths in the U.S., but associated with this fact comes the line

Research shows that educational programs designed to teach children not to touch guns do not work. If kids find guns, they usually play with them. Such play can quickly turn deadly.

And right next to it, this picture of a toddler reaching into a dresser drawer:

Now, what are you to infer from this? That the overwhelming majority of those 824 accidental deaths were that of very young children, no? This is pure propaganda, and it’s propaganda that works, as illustrated by my favorite reference, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s Salon.com piece “What a few good women can do” from March of 2000:

And what about the more than 4,000 children who die in gun-related accidents each year? That’s 11 kids a day. And we’re not talking about crimes, or intentional shootings. We’re talking — or not talking enough — about accidents.

She believes not 824 little kids, but 4,000 die from gun accidents.

Let’s look at the facts, as unpleasant as they actually are. In 1999, as the piece says, 824 accidental deaths by gunshot were recorded. But how many of these were children? If you define it as I do as “under the age of 18” then the total number of “children” who died by accidental gunshot wound was 158. If you mean small children, such as the one in the picture – say, under the age of 10? 31. Not 4,000. Not 824. Thirty-one.

Compare that to the number of children under the age of 10 who died by drowning in 1999: 750. The number under the age of 10 who died in bicycle accidents? 81.

But we’re told endlessly that they’re no longer interested in gun-control any more, but now it’s gun-safety they pursue. I’m sorry, but guns are apparently safer than water or bicycles, at least for small children.

Next:

• Firearms are the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults

Guns kept in the home can threaten the health and safety of the family, especially if they are not stored securely.

Again, the intention to mislead. Firearms ARE the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults. Between the ages of 15 and 24, it isn’t accidental death, it’s homicide. “Safe storage” doesn’t have any effect on that. The third leading cause of death in that age group is suicide, and hopefully I’ve already covered that topic in sufficient detail.

But here’s something really interesting that will undoubtedly get me labled as a racist: Who makes up the overwhelming majority of the homicide victims? In 1999 a total of 4,998 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 (inclusive) died from homicide. Of those, 2,453 were black males – 49%. But black males between the ages of 15 and 24 (inclusive) represent only 7.6% of the population of the US of that age. Read that again – 7.6% of all Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 provide 49% of the victims of homicide by all methods for that age group.

Now, is it a “gun storage” problem, or is it something else?

Finally:

• For every time a gun in the home is used in self-defense, there are 22 criminal, unintentional or intentional self-inflicted shootings

The data suggest that the risks of a gun in the home, especially a handgun, outweigh any benefits.

Source? “Injuries and Deaths due to Firearms in the Home,” Journal of Trauma, 1998. Author? Dr. Kellermann again. You think they’d try and find someone else just to be a bit more broad, but you’ll notice in the pamphlet that they don’t tell you who the author is, just the prestigious journal the “statistic” was published in. This is toned down from his “43 times more likely” claim, but only barely.

Now I ask you, given the statistics provided by the CDC itself, do you think “guns in the home” are the problem?

(Extensive use of the CDC WISQARS tools were used to compile the data in this post.)