NYTimes Article about Children and Guns - The Hidden Toll

[dvajda]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html

Long article, negative against the NRA but doesn't go over the top. Though I'm not sure I follow the reasoning that the number of gun-related deaths is undercounted, considering the large number of suicides that are usually tacked up under gun violence. Hope this isn't a dupe.

 

[StevieP]

Business Week, of all sites, had a good rebuttal:

Child Gun Deaths: There Are Encouraging Trends, Too, Statistics Show - Businessweek

 

[mikem317]

I caught this the other day too.

It has a few canned anti messages in there for good measure I noticed.

I stopped reading about 1/4 the way through but I plan on finishing it. I guess the author's beef is that "accidental discharges" are under-reported and the NRA is behind it. If the NRA basically got out of the way then it would show that millions of children die every day because of guns. And then we could solve the problem once and for all, which probably means just banning all of them so gun crime disappears. Or so goes the narrative.

 

[dvajda]

I thought the numbers argument was a bit of a stretch myself. Someone did comment that pools kill a large number of children even though there are laws in place requiring a fence.

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

We need to ban toilets, lots of toddlers drown in them

and as Obama says "if we can save just one life then we need to do whatever it takes" GO OUTBACK BY THE TREE MARKED M

 

[dukecola]

Kids die from a variety of accidents, some negligent like guns and pools, but also, more kids die from falling tv's than from so-called assault weapons. We won't even mention shaken baby syndrome, or dog bites, or falls. When will the gun-grabbers realize that accidents happen.

 

[mikem317]

We need to ban toilets, lots of toddlers drown in them

and as Obama says "if we can save just one life then we need to do whatever it takes" GO OUTBACK BY THE TREE MARKED M

"But toilets and pools weren't designed to kill people! Guns kill people!"

The "old reliable" war cry that "Guns kill people" is actually the closing line in the comment with the highest score.

I honestly don't know if they actually think inanimate objects get up, become animated and then kill on their own volition or if there's some black magic that vexes the gun owner and turns them into a robotic, homicidal maniac.

Whatever the case is, they're sorely and tragically wrong.

If they think that there's an epidemic of gun violence, which of course, there isn't, wait until only the state has guns. Then they'll see some very epic gun violence a la Stalin, Hilter and Mao.

 

[hminsky]

The article is sleazy and intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

First, they start with several tear jerking anecdotal stories, and then come in with the shocking news that child firearms accidents could be higher than reported by, gasp 50%, or something. And that moves the rank of the firearms deaths by accidental discharge from ninth to seventh or something in the causes of death in children.

What they *NEVER* say is what the actual number of these accidents is, or even more important what is the rate per 100,000 people. Because the number of these accidents is tiny. Less than 200 per year. And if you look at the ranking of causes of death, the more frequent ones are in the tens of thousands. Things like congenital deformities, SIDS, drowning in pools, auto accidents, etc.

So the whole scare-em tone of the article is deceitful for an enormously unlikely cause of death.

Scum bag idiots for publishing this crap in the guise of scientific research.

 

[LittleCalm]

"But toilets and pools weren't designed to kill people! Guns kill people!"

I see. So if something is not designed to kill you, then it's ok if it kills you. Never understood that argument. More chilrden drown in pools every year yet we should not ban pools in order to save more lives of children.

 

[Mr_Irritating]

Weird, I thought smoking crack was illegal.