Monday, October 28, 2013

US Child Gun Deaths Rose 60% in 10 Years

The number of US kids and teens who die from gunshot wounds in hospital has risen almost 60% in a decade, according to a new report. The study by two doctors looked at data from 1997 to 2009, and found the number of those hospitalized with gunshot wounds rose from 4,270 to 7,730, while the number of those that then died from them climbed from 317 to 503, NBC Newsreports. Eight out of 10 of the wounds came from handguns, says study author Arin L. Madenci. "Furthermore, states with higher percentages of household firearm ownership also tended to have higher proportions of childhood gunshot wounds, especially those occurring in the home," he says.
As a result of the findings, the authors say, perhaps the national conversation about gun control should move from larger semi-automatic weapons to limiting the number of smaller firearms in homes. "While public health resources and policies have largely focused on military-style semi-automatic assault weapons, it may be more crucial to intervene on handguns," says Madenci, per Medical Daily. The director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research tells Discovery that research and data like this has been sorely lacking in the field since Congress stopped funding it in the 1990s. "I see this as a huge step forward," he says.

28 comments:

  1. "During that period, hospitalizations of kids and teens aged 20 and younger from gunshot wounds jumped from 4,270 to 7,730. Firearm deaths of children logged by hospitals rose from 317 in 1997 to 503 in 2009, records showed."

    Its remarkable how those adults who are aged 18-20 get relabeled as teens, and then children in the same article. If you use CDC data, and only include real children, as in ages 0 to 17, firearm deaths range from 2284 in 1997 to 1337 in 2010. Looks like a decrease to me.
    And strangely enough, when you do include the 18-20 year olds, the numbers from the CDC are 5207 in 1997 and falls to 3459 in 2010. Still a decrease.

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    1. To the gun control freak's mind, we're all children of the state.

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  2. I guess spinning the numbers makes those deaths OK.

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    1. Anon, No one ever said it made the numbers ok. But you cant fix the problem without accurate data. And getting caught throwing out conflicting numbers out there with no explanation makes your numbers look made up and therefor doesn't help your argument.

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    2. But you never talk about what can be done to stop deaths. You always have some excuse for why any numbers from good sources that Mike posts, are lies.

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    3. "You always have some excuse for why any numbers from good sources that Mike posts, are lies."

      Anon, We don't know if Mike's source is good or not. We do know that it seems to contradict the data from the CDC for some reason we don't know.
      As for having a solution for gun violence? Or were you referring to something more specific? I wish I did have a solution. But alas, I am but an old soldier going to school to be a nerd. Though I have been called a hillbilly recently.

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    4. You certainly could fix the problem even without accurate data. We've talked about the problem with stats before. There are always going to be conflicting reports. That's not an excuse for doing nothing about the problem, which is what you want to do apparently.

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    5. Maybe they called you a hillbilly because you reject facts and science. If hillbilly means an uneducated person who does not seek facts and science to base their loudly declared positions.

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    6. Anonymous, I've talked about solutions many times:

      Longer terms for violent offenders
      Improved schools across the nation
      Elimination of many gun-free zones

      It's just that gun control freaks don't want to try something that would work.

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    7. Anon, the problem is that these "facts" conflict with facts from a source with a fairly good reputation called the CDC. In fact, the CDC has this cool page that helps even guys like me look at data that meets certain parameters.
      http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html

      Perhaps if you could give it a try you might see where I've messed up. I used it to see if the CDC data agreed with the "facts" of this study.
      As for how I got called a hillbilly, its a long story, you had to be there.

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    8. Improve schools. How?
      Crime is down due in great part, because our jails are full of criminals that got longer prison terms. How does that help stop the new criminals coming along?
      Columbine had armed security on campus. Just because people can carry doesn't mean they will be there when needed, or even want to get involved. I do not accept that every person carrying is a hero, or will get involved if needed.

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    9. No, there weren't any armed guards at Columbine. The two came from outside and didn't go in.

      If we legalize drugs, especially for simple possession, that would free up many spaces in prisons for the genuinely dangerous criminals and take away a major cause of violence in this country.

      Schools can be improved by paying teachers what they're worth, reducing class sizes, having real discipline, and paying for books and equipment. That's a start. I talk about school reform more on my blog, though.

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    10. Greg and the other fanatics are desperately trying to spin the discussion away from anything that might inconvenience them even a little bit.

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    11. Even though numbers differ, the CDC numbers also result in showing a gruesome problem. Why argue about the numbers if both sources show an obvious problem? We should be arguing how to solve, or curtail the problem.

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    12. The gun control side always presents raw numbers without putting them into context that would show the proportionality of the problem. I just named actual solutions that would improve our total violence problem. Firearms education also works to reduce accidental deaths, including those of children.

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    13. I'll go along with Columbine survivors and reporters on the scene, that there were armed security on campus.

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    14. "A Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy, Neil Gardner, was assigned to the high school as a full-time uniformed and armed school resource officer. Gardner usually ate lunch with students in the cafeteria, but on April 20 he was eating lunch in his patrol car at the northwest corner of the campus, watching students in the Smokers' Pit in Clement Park."

      "While exiting his patrol car in the Senior lot at 11:24, he heard another call on the school radio, "Neil, there's a shooter in the school". Harris, at the West Entrance, immediately fired his rifle at Gardner, who was sixty yards away. Gardner returned fire with his service pistol. He was not wearing his prescription eyeglasses, and was unable to hit the shooters."
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#Shooting_begins_11:19_a.m.

      There was security at the school, it just happened to be dumb luck that he was outside of the building when it all started. The big factor that contributed to the many dead and wounded was the police SOP at the time of cordoning off the area and waiting for a large force to gather. As a result of the shooting at Columbine, the police developed the current practice of aggressively pursuing an active shooter in small groups.

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    15. Greg, what do you say to that?

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  3. Mike, you should change the title of this post to read: US Child Gun Deaths in hospital rose 60% in 10 years.

    As is, the title is false.

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    1. If those who died in hospitals increased, so did the overall number.

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    2. No, you can't just assume that. Why wouldn't they cite the more intuitive overall numbers, rather than citing the sub-category, "in hospitals"? As proof, Ssgmarkcr just showed you the overall numbers from the CDC, and not only did they not rise 60%, but they actually went down. Why? Who knows? Maybe it's a decline in quality of health care, or it could be improvements in the responsiveness of emergency services that get patients to hospitals quicker as well as keeping them alive longer at the scene and in the ambulance. The point is, your takeaway from this data is wrong, as well as the title of this post.

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    3. Probably because the in-hospital deaths are more concretely documented. What's your theory, that the non-hospital deaths have decreased so much as to swing the whole thing? That doesn't sound possible.

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    4. My hypothesis, as I explained above, is that though violence crime, murder, and accidents with guns have gone way down over the past few decades (which is verifiable), deaths that occurred in the hospital have increased because we’ve made major improvements in people getting to the hospital quickly. Cell phones are huge in that regard. The victim or a witness is dialing 911 right away, aided by GPS tracking, and other technological advancements. Why does “in the hospital” matter when we are talking about a child’s death? They added that sub-category because they can make it seem like the problem is getting worse, hoping people won’t even pick up on the fact that they are not talking about overall deaths. You fell for it pretty hard.

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    5. The "in the hospital" ones matter because they're the ones that are documented and easily counted. I repeat my question, do you think the non-hospital deaths have decreased so much that the whole thing presented in this post is wrong? And if so, what would account for that? It doesn't make sense, unless of course, you want it to.

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    6. You think there are a bunch of undocumented dead kids out there? Really? “You can’t hide a body”, Mike. I thought you watched “The Wire”? And why has this shifted over time then? Why are there more undocumented dead kids now than there were 10 years ago?

      Mike: “I repeat my question, do you think the non-hospital deaths have decreased so much that the whole thing presented in this post is wrong?”

      The post isn’t wrong. You just interpreted it wrong. They never said anything about non-hospital deaths. They most likely wanted you to interpret it wrong, though.

      Why doesn’t my explanation seem sound to you? Because of an increase in repose technology, more kids are making it to the hospital rather than dying on the street or in the home. There is a shift in where they died, but that doesn't mean more deaths.

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    7. You're the one who pointed out that the article was limiting itself to in-hospital deaths.

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  4. "proportionality of the problem"
    Which means what? If deaths are such a small percentage of the population, we have no problem, or we can simply ignore those deaths?
    Your solutions; which I would not disagree with except they will not stop those deaths, costs money and a need to raise taxes, which is an absolute no with Republicans, the majority that have the power over such financial decisions.

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