Anytime a child dies our hearts
automatically go out to the family because we recognize that so much human
potential has now vanished. Sometimes
children die because they are shot by guns and such unfortunate events then develop into a frenzied determination to assert gun
control is a national emergency in order to stop the “senseless violence.” A recent opinion piece in the Louisville
Courier-Journal (June 22, 2014) points up how badly gun control advocates will
manipulate the statistics in order to get what they want and how little they
actually care about children.
The
piece in the Courier-Journal starts with the story about a 2 year old girl
accidentally shot and killed by her 5 year old brother. This tugs at the heart and is tragic. But if you read the rest of the article you
would conclude that this is happening at a frightening and epidemic pace. A simple check with the Centers for Disease
Control, however, shows that in 2010, which appears to be the latest year for
which the numbers have been collected, 288 children between the ages newborn
and 14 died from gun related deaths, nationwide. This includes suicides and homicides. I don’t want to minimize the loss of these
288 children. However, to claim, somehow
that 288 deaths from guns proves the need for massive gun control like every
other “developed country” hardly makes the case.
As
of 2010 there were roughly 61,000,000 children ages newborn to 14. You begin to see the nature of this “epidemic”
when you see these numbers side by side.
The number of children under 14 who died from gunshots was less than one
half of one thousandth of a percent of all children in that age group in the
United States in 2010 (0.0005%). Oh, and by the way, according to the CDC
homicide dropped from the top 15 causes of death overall in 2010 for the first
time since 1965 – this includes homicides among children and teenagers. Moreover, the number of school shootings is
actually down from past years. What this
tells me is the authors of this piece simply don’t care what the numbers really
show – they’re more interested in making comparisons of very small numbers and
then treating you to a statistical analysis which, while correct, misleads
people into assuming gun violence is at some sort of crisis level and gun
control is necessary now in order to stop the madness.
Let
me provide a made up example that points out how statistics can be
manipulated. Suppose you hear a report
that statistically there is a ten times greater chance of getting killed in a
shooting in city one over city two. Sounds
ominous and foreboding. Certainly no one
would ever want to go to city one. But
then you learn that each city has one million people and there were ten gun
deaths in city one and one in city two. When
the statistic is reported without giving the raw data behind it, the appearance
makes it sound like city one is much more violent. I could just as easily argue that the since
the odds of getting shot in either city are less than one thousandth of 1%,
both cities are pretty doggone safe. It
would be patently absurd, and utterly manipulative for city two to take out an advertising
campaign claiming it is ten times safer than city one. No one would be willing to accept this kind
of nonsense.
Moreover,
most of the gun deaths which the authors report on are not tragic accidents or
even murders of young children. Most of
the gun deaths among “children” are teenagers who are 15 and older. These are mostly young men shooting other
young men (according to the CDC over 80% of gun deaths of people between 15 and
24 are male), and these young men know full well that pulling the trigger of a
gun when pointed at another human being is very likely to cause significant
injury or death. Moreover, a number of
these teenage deaths are suicides.
Suicides don’t take place because of a gun but because the teenager has
spiritual and psychological issues that put he or she in the frame of mind that
taking his or her own life is the only path to peace. The gun is an instrument, not the cause of
the death. Drugs, razors, ropes, and cars can do the job just as well.
The
simple facts are that guns are not killing children in the incredible numbers
which the authors’ statistics are intended to imply. They never give any raw numbers because they
know that to do so would undercut their argument and that sensible people looking
at the raw numbers might well disagree with the idea that there is some sort of
crisis going on here. I will actually
take this a step further and say that these authors have so manipulated the
data that they have been dishonest. But
of course, the headline tells us where all this is going: “Children too
precious to let NRA rule us.”
So
where does this leave us? It’s okay to
manipulate people if your cause is just?
This is the kind of ends justify the means thinking that seems to
permeate much of the political discourse going on in our country these
days. I am not making the case for or
against gun control here, just pointing out that making the case for gun
control based on pure manipulation, both statistically and emotionally, is
morally questionable at best, outright lying at worst. There’s an old saying in the law: when you
have the facts, argue the facts, when you have the law, argue the law, when you
have neither, argue the loudest. It
seems to me that’s where we are in our national discourse these days – we bend
and sway in our opinions depending on who argues the loudest. The problem is, as my Dad used to say, if you
tell a lie long enough and loud enough people will assume it’s the truth.
The
truth is that it is sad when children die.
However, I wonder if these authors care about the over 50 MILLION
children killed by abortion over the past four decades in the United
States? No statistics necessary here –
the number speaks for itself. Based on
the logic of these authors, abortion, like guns, should be banned, right? Two hundred eighty-eight children dying from
gun shots every year is tragic. One million
children dying from abortion every year is a national disgrace. No manipulation necessary.
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