Sunday, June 3, 2012
Accidental Shooting of Detroit 15-Year-old by her Brother - No Charges
Black or white, rural or urban, it's the same story all over the country every single day. Kids are being killed due to negligent use of guns, guns that shouldn't even be there. And no one is being held accountable.
Recently one of our gun-loving commenters quoted the statistics about how many of the "accidental" killings each year are actually children. 80 something out of 600 he said. I found that hard to believe, but now I'm convinced something is wrong with that number.
In today's news alone there are THREE. Now, that's a far cry from the ONE every four or five days that 80 would give us. There seems to be some kind of disconnect between the supposedly bona fide statistics and the daily reports.
What's your opinion? Is this something that needs to be taken more seriously, or not?
Please leave a comment.
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You are unaware, I take it, that the events of a single day cannot be extrapolated to a whole year. You'd have to show a pattern over many days that repeats itself to draw a valid conclusion. But should we take it seriously? Yes. Should we adopt your solutions? No.
ReplyDeleteGreg, as a daily reader of my blog, you should know that I have good reason to question the suggestion that only 80 kids a year are killed with guns.
DeleteI see one or two "kid shootings" a week, so about eighty a year is supported by what you present.
DeleteGreg, when you say shit like that I wish democommie were here to take you to task for it.
DeleteMy point is that eighty or 800 aren't that much different when compared to the total population of gun owners, guns, and citizens in this country. You want to argue over minutiae. The important question is what do we do about the situation. You want a radical solution; I prefer to continue the trend that already exists--namely, a steady decrease in accidental shootings. I prefer to keep that going through education. You want laws.
DeleteSo far this year we've documented at least 157 accidental shootings involving children, published at Kid Shootings blog, and we know that they represent only a small percentage of them all.
ReplyDeletehttp://kidshootings.blogspot.com/search/label/Accident
That's right. Willful ignorance is what the pro-gun fanatics do with this one.
DeleteMike, what I posted was unintentional firearm related fatal injuries as reported by CDC for the year 2009. I doubt the CDC is suppressing this number and actually, the number is now at 83. Although, the total fatalities for age group 0-19 is still at 114, the number of fatalities for age 18 has decrease from 16 to 13. It seems that the statistics don't fit your "all the kids are being mowed down by assault rifles" fantasy so now you need to throw a blanket of suspicion on the "supposedly bona fide statistics". If you find it hard to believe the 2009 data, wait until 2010 data comes out, I'm guessing there will be between about 55 and 65 unintentional fatal injuries for age group 0-17.
ReplyDeleteKid Shooting, you're counting all injuries and apparently injuries to adults caused by children as well, and yes, 157 is a small percentage considering that non fatal injuries averaged 2,200 per year for the years 2001-2010 (of those, about 1/3 required hospitalization)
I agree that it's a serious matter and very tragic, but education would lead to less injuries, not regulation.
Bill the numbers don't make sense to me. I read the news every day.
DeleteNot limiting it to kids who end up dead is good. Adding those who are injured even slightly, too. That's got to be a few thousand. Add to that the 10,000 or more incidents that must take place in which no one is hurt and no report is made.
You probably want to haggle over the number, but even you would admit there are many of them and the behavior is exactly as negligent as when a kid is killed.
The problem is a lot bigger than you like to admit.
1. Must, makes sense to me, I feel, and so forth aren't evidence. You're making numbers up.
Delete2. But even if your numbers are accurate, in a country of 300,000,000, they're a tiny percentage of the total population. You want radical solutions to something that can be solved in better ways.
UPDATE:
Deletehttp://mikeb302000.blogspot.it/2012/06/brother-arrested-in-detroit-shooting-of.html
"Bill the numbers don't make sense to me."
DeleteI guess that means that the problem is not nearly as bad as you thought it was.
"Adding those who are injured even slightly, too. That's got to be a few thousand."
I think the total for 2010 was 1,280, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Never mind, I looked it up, it was 1,289. Again, while tragic, it's not an epidemic like you like to believe and can be addressed through education, not legislation, regulation, or fornication with 2A rights.
You know why that's crap, Bill? Because gun owners are already doing the education thing. What gun owner doesn't do that. It doesn't work.
DeleteThose numbers, even if they are accurate, represent PREVENTABLE incidents, and not by education. Nice try.
In a country of 300,000,000 plus people, it makes no sense to make radical changes in law because of 1,200 incidents. How can you not understand that?
Deleteno, mikeb, we need firearms safety classes in school but anti groups fight that tooth and nail. There is no reason that there shouldn't be a semi-annual firearm safety class from K-8 and an actual class in 9-12 grades. I think kids should graduate high school with a range certificate that meets state standards for for CCW permit.
Delete