Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Guns and Kids - Urban and Rural

Il Principe sent us the link to this Yahoo News article about guns and kids.

Children in the most rural areas of the United States are as likely to die by gunshot as kids in the biggest cities, a new analysis of nearly 24,000 deaths finds.

Not surprisingly, murders involving firearms are more common among city youth. But gun suicides and accidental shootings level the score: They are more common among rural kids.

"This debunks the myth that firearm death is a big-city problem," said lead author Dr. Michael Nance of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "This is everybody's problem."


The pro-gun supporters have a few words they use too much, "draconian" is one. Another is "despicable." They often use "despicable" to describe gun control efforts, you know "taking away rights" and all that nonsense.

Well, I'll give you an example of despicable. On gun blogs you'll sometimes read a mocking and sarcastic phrase aimed at the gun control folks, an attempt to indicate their arguments are silly. They say "it's for the children," as if there's something wrong with that. That's what I call despicable.

The new findings add important information to what's known about guns and kids, said Dr. Elizabeth Powell of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, who has conducted research on firearms in Chicago, but was not involved in the new study.

"Prevention strategies need to be targeted to youth in rural areas as well as urban areas," Powell said.

Why do you suppose the rural kids are having as much trouble with guns as they are? Aren't they taught by their dads what to do and what not to do? Aren't they being "gun proofed?" We can understand the stats in inner cities, what with gangs and drugs all around, but what's the problem in those less populated areas?

I'll tell you what the problem is, it's guns. Guns are inherently dangerous and kids, as well as adults, are going to make mistakes with them. The more guns there are the more mistakes we have.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

4 comments:

  1. Wow. Another study where they count 18 and 19 year olds as Children®. When you count actual children, their 24,000 number is cut in half. And of that 12,000, it's revealed that the majority of deaths are urban homicides. Basically, the gun controllers are counting adult suicides to skew their numbers in their favor.

    That's why gun controllers are mocked when they say, "It's for the children."

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  2. AztecRed, That doesn't make sense at all. If they eliminated the older teens, the urban stats would be most affected. You got it backwards.

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  3. They say "it's for the children," as if there's something wrong with that. That's what I call despicable.

    You know what I would call despicable? Anti-gun folks who fight gun safety education efforts in schools. These programs would undoubtedly reduce both the number of homicides in urban environments and the number of suicides in rural environments.

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  4. Y'know, it's pretty easy to guess the Enzyte™ of Gunloons' response to any academic study involving guns and kids:

    1. All the kids were 19--and gangbangers!!

    2. Study funded by someone other than NRA!!

    3. I don't need to read the study because it's BS!!

    Since I 'm not neurologically impaired like "Superman" Hoffmmann, I will shed some light on the study.

    The study actually divided these kids into teens and non-teens. Among teens, the per capita rate of gunshot deaths was 4.6. Among non-teens, it was 4.0. Thus, Az Red's objection goes "poof."

    The study also found that urban kids were more likely to be homicide victims while non-urban kids were far more likely to be victims of accidents or suicides.

    --JadeGold

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