BRADY CENTER: GUNS IN HOMES INCREASE CHILDREN DEATHS

[Nasty Jack]

In a February report from the Brady Center, they found that suicide by firearm increased among American adolescents for the third consecutive year. Before you gun nuts question the figures, it comes from the latest fatal injury data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). You remember the CDC don't you, the organization that has been compiling information on gun violence for years that the National Rifle Assn. would not allow to be released. Well it's out there now and the numbers are appalling. In 2013, suicide by firearm claimed 876 lives among adolescents ages 10 to 19, the highest level since 2001. Most of these youth suicides occur with a gun belonging to a family member, usually a parent. And therein lays the problem: irresponsible parents leaving firearms unsecured so the kids can just fetch them up and blow theirs or their brother or sister's brains all over the couch.

Brady says that parents who think having a gun in the house is a safeguard are missing the point entirely because the CDC data says that having a gun in the home dramatically increases the danger that a child will be shot and killed. Further, the same holds true for preventable accidents and school shootings, including the tragedy at Sandy Hook. It’s usually a gun that belonged to a parent or a relative. This might give some credence to what the NRA is constantly flashing in the face of gun control advocates, that "Guns don't kill, people do."
In this case guns don't kill, feckless gun-owning parents do.

The Brady Center’s analysis of the latest CDC fatal injury data shows:

States with the most gun deaths (Alaska, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Wyoming) had high rates of gun ownership. Conversely, states with the fewest gun deaths (Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) had low rates of gun ownership.

In 2013, firearm-related injuries were the second most common cause of death for children and teens ages 1-19. Only motor vehicles were responsible for more deaths among this age group.

Following a decrease in 2012, the unintentional gun death rate for children and teens rose 15% in 2013.

It's hard to argue with these cold facts but I am sure the gun nuts will.

For those of you who care to look at my blog, you can see it here: http://nastyjackbuzz.blogspot.com/ For those of you who don't, please don't look at it.

[randys1]

1. A tech question, sort of, how did the Brady Center get these stats?

I thought the pukes heading up the NRA managed to squash access.

[gejohnston]

2. they simply made them up

or took various unconnected data points and tried to create something.
But no, access was never denied, nor was research. Only advocacy and lobbying. Their record with Politifact is actually worse than Fox's.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/brady-campaign-prevent-gun-violence/

[sarisataka]

5. From the CDC

who always has been allowed to collect cause of death data. I believe they can do almost anything now; Obama removed most or all restrictions on the CDC.

Celebrations by gun control groups were cut short when the Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence
was released. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=18319&page=R1

Among other things it said

1. Armed citizens are less likely to be injured by an attacker:
“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

2. Defensive uses of guns are common:
“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.”

3. Mass shootings and accidental firearm deaths account for a small fraction of gun-related deaths, and both are declining:
“The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” The report also notes, “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

4. “Interventions” (i.e, gun control) such as background checks, so-called assault rifle bans and gun-free zones produce “mixed” results:
“Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.” The report could not conclude whether “passage of right-to-carry laws decrease or increase violence crime.”

{more}
To be fair, it pointed out several issues with gun ownership and abuse but it was not the absolute condemnation that had been expected.

Since then gun control organizations pretend that report does not exist and, the CDC now being suspect, data are only quoted after being cherry picked and vetted by Brady, VPC, Everytown, etc.

[krispos42]

3. second most common, eh?

Did you fix your Billy Mays key yet?

[Nasty Jack]

9. Apples and oranges

Your stats are broken down by specific years. The CDC is an overall figure of years 1 to 19, a big difference.

[Shamash]

12. More like dumb and dumber

First, taking stats for specific years is how we measure progress. For instance, the unintentional firearm death rate is going down, despite there being no firearm law to conveniently take credit for it.

Second, it is a measure of intellectual dishonesty to claim 19 year olds as children, considering they can vote, get married, serve in the military and be tried as adults. Likewise to leave out the <1 year olds (are they too young to count, or would it just skew the Brady numbers and make guns look even less threatening?)

Third, it is equally dishonest to assume that every suicide involving a firearm would not have been a suicide by some other means if a firearm was not available.

Fourth, the implication of your statements is that every death of a child that involves a firearm, involves a firearm owned by the parents of that child. The CDC figures do not make that distinction.

Fifth, if the rankings for firearms in the individual age ranges listed in the previous comment are 9, 12 and 6, this does not average to the 2nd most likely item. Nor does it become the 2nd most likely item if you add the actual fatalities together.

Do you actually have a liberal argument to support your position on this issue, or is the extent of your talent to uncritically (and inaccurately) repeat things you read on someone else's web page and then link it to your own page? Your articles are big on assertions, but short on actually defending those assertions against criticism.

[krispos42]

13. I don't seem to have a screen grab for 15-19 years

But for the rest, firearm deaths are 9th, 12th, and 7th, respectively.

Not only would firearms have to be #1 in the 15-19 pool, it would have to be so friggin' high to make up for the previous low rankings.

The Brady Campaign is wrong.

[sarisataka]

14. The CDC groups ages 15-24

I haven't been able to locate any CDC document that separates out 15-19. Not surprisingly, Brady doesn't indicate how they derived those numbers. They site CDC's WISQARS web but fatal injury data is not available for 2013, the year in question.

Using CDC data, "Intentional self-harm (suicide) by other and unspecified means and their sequelae" would be the #2 cause of death, extrapolating 15-19 data from 15-24 age category. Slightly more accurate than a WAG.

Now if one were to massage the data and create subcategories under self-harm by other, then firearms would move into the #2 spot.

All it takes is cherry picking the numbers and redefining the data points...

[petronius]

15. You can enter custom age ranges on WISQARS

http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_us.html

Which is what the cited Brady report seems to have relied on...

[sarisataka]

20. Thanks

I had gone to the wrong section

[blueridge3210]

6. Still flogging your crappy blog? (nt)

[Nasty Jack]

10. You don't have to read it, numbnuts.

[blueridge3210]

11. Oh, I have no intention of reading your childish drivel.

I'm just noting that your pathetic blog is the only source you cite for your juvenile posts.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

16. Well he won't be replying here

Maybe we need a smiley of shooting one's own foot.

[friendly_iconoclast]

18. He should use the time to get tutoring on statistics

I know of a professor of calcululz with lots of free time on his hands- perhaps he'll
be willing to help...

[Duckhunter935]

22. Good one

[ileus]

7. On your person or locked up.

It's that easy....


I'd rather have life saving devices in my home than have 911 as my first line of defense.


Safety First....easy willing victim never.

[Eleanors38]

17. Most folks would be heartened by the drop in childhood deaths-by- guns. Most....

And most would be encouraged to see that gun-related accidental deaths for ALL AGES has dropped from a high of 3,200 in 1930, to around 600 by 2011, marking an 80+% drop in deaths per 100,000 population. (Nat'l Safety Coun.).

But that's Most people who would be intellectually curious to know Why this drop in deaths happened, and were willing to see what works and what doesn't, all to better serve social policy.

A few, however, choose to carry on some cottage industry culture war where calling people bad names is both the means and ends.

[sarisataka]

19. Remember the words of a certain poster

"I don't give a flying fuck why those deaths might be fewer"

Brady even mentions:

The overall firearm fatality rate among adolescents 19 and younger decreased
7.5% from 2012 to 2013, the largest annual decrease in 13 years.

• The firearm homicide rate for children and teens dropped 15% in 2013, and is
now 67% lower than its 1993 peak.

but then goes right back into beating the same old drum. You have to read carefully to find that while suicide by firearm is up 22%-

This upward trend is not limited to suicide by firearm. Between
2007 and 2013, the overall suicide rate among adolescents
ages 10 to 19 increased 34%, from 3.77 to 5.05 per 100,000
population. In 2013, suicide surpassed homicide to become
the second leading cause of death among children and teens.

so actually suicide by other means has increased more than by firearms.

Maybe they should give a flying fuck why those deaths might be fewer

[clffrdjk]

21. must suck to get thrown out of your own hate thread.

[Ghost in the Machine]

23. GUNS IN HOMES (of irresponsible, idiotic owners) INCREASE CHILDREN DEATHS

There, I fixed it for you.

I grew up in a home with guns and was taught from an early age that they were NOT toys, and were NOT TO BE TOUCHED without adult supervision. I got my first BB gun when I was 4 or 5 years old and my first .22 rifle when I was 7. By the time I was 10 I had shot pistols my father owned... from a .22 Magnum, a .38, a 9mm Luger and a .357 Magnum. By the time I was 16 I had 3 different .22 rifles, a 410ga shotgun, a 20ga shotgun, a 12ga shotgun and an 8mm Mauser. No one in our home, siblings or otherwise, ever got killed. Most of my friends grew up in homes with guns also and none of them or their siblings were ever killed either.

My own kids grew up with guns in the house, as did most of their friends. They were all taught from a young age that guns were not toys and weren't to be touched if an adult wasn't around. Guess what? NONE OF THEM were ever killed, nor did any of them accidently kill anyone else! Imagine that...

Dumbass parents who don't teach their kids about gun safety, don't teach their kids the proper respect of handling a weapon and, especially the dumbasses that leave loaded guns laying on the table, standing in the corner or laying in a dresser drawer make up the majority of gun owners who sadly lose a child, a childs friend, a spouse or even their own life.

There are several stories right in this group about kids who found guns laying on the table, under a mattress and even stuffed between the couch cushions and started playing with them and ended up shooting themselves, a family member or a friend.

IMHO, teaching children from a young age breaks their curiosity about guns and they know that they aren't toys to be played with. It's all about EDUCATING THEM... and also about being responsible and not leaving said guns laying around where a child can get to them.

I have my doubts about whether this will sink in to you though. Whenever I see someone being derogatory and using the term "gun nuts" with a broad brush I figure that they are already too far gone, but I at least attempt to get a message through to them anyways. Who knows? Maybe all they need is a little education about the reality of RESPONSIBLE gun owners who actually teach their children that guns are dangerous and not toys to be played with.

Peace,

Ghost