Guns are the leading cause of death among children. A new study concludes that states that have eliminated gun restrictions have higher death rates among children than states that have retained restrictions. The National Rifle Association, which opposes any restrictions on access to guns, dissented.
The NRA, the Supreme Court, and the gun-loving Republican Party can take credit for the deaths of thousands of children. Their extremist interpretation of the Second Amendment is lethal to children.
Firearm deaths of children and teenagers rose significantly in states that enacted more permissive gun laws after the Supreme Court in 2010 limited local governments’ ability to restrict gun ownership, a new study has found.
In states that maintained stricter laws, firearm deaths were stable after the ruling, the researchers reported, and in some, they even declined.
Guns are the leading cause of death in the United States for people ages 1 through 17, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency room doctor at Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital in Boston, who was the study’s lead author, said he was dismayed to find that most of the children’s deaths were homicides and suicides.
“It’s surprising how few of these are accidents,” Dr. Faust said. “I always thought that a lot of pediatric mortality from guns is that somebody got into the wrong place, and I still think safe storage is important, but it’s mostly homicides and suicides.”
John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, called the study “political propaganda masquerading as scientific research.”
The study, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, examined the 13-year period after the June 2010 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment, which protects the right to bear arms, applies to state and local gun-control laws. The decision effectively limited the ability of state and local governments to regulate firearms.
The researchers classified states into three categories based on their gun laws: most permissive, permissive and strict. They used a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database to analyze firearm mortality trends from 1999 to 2010 — before the Supreme Court ruling — and compared them with the 13-year period afterward.
Nationally, they found that the number of people under 18 who died from firearm injuries in the period after the ruling exceeded the projected figure for that time by about 7,400, with a total of about 23,000 fatalities.
But in the nine states with the strictest gun laws, youth firearm deaths did not increase. In four — California, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island — they dropped significantly.
The average age of those killed was 14, according to the study, which was coauthored by researchers from Yale New Haven Hospital, the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and the schools of public health at University of Pittsburgh and Brown University.
Advocates for stricter gun laws praised the study, saying it expanded the evidence that gun safety laws save lives.
“We have shown in the past that states that have the strongest laws when it comes to gun policy have a gun violence rate that’s 2.5 times less than the states with the weakest,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety. “Lawmakers that refuse to take action or further loosen laws are putting kids’ lives at risk.
He also said that gun safety laws had multiple benefits, reducing accidental shootings, while also preventing youth suicides and school shootings. “Three of four school shootings are committed with a weapon taken from the home of the family or a close relative,” Mr. Suplina said.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I grew up in a very gun-oriented culture. I grew up in a very redemptive culture. These forces tug at my culture constantly. There is the thing about unconditional love for all people embedded deep in the culture. There is the thing about protecting yourself and your family. These values tug at one another.
Some people cannot deal with the contradictions. They choose safety over redemption. They slip into judgmental views of society. Masses of them commit heinous acts. Marginal individuals use the power of a single weapon to destroy the safety of their supposed opponents. Most often, individuals facing a judgement they have long used on others turn the force on themselves. Depression and suicide become a counterpoint to society intent on judgement and safety.
Perhaps you do not believe me. I used to keep a list of people I knew fairly well who had committed suicide. I sort of quit when it exceeded fifty. Most suffered from depression and had access to strong poisons and loaded guns. I recall 4 people who were probably victims of PTSD from World War II. People shook their heads and mumbled. “They were in the War.” Others faced severe sanctions from society for various behaviors they though would be private. Many were teenagers, seized by a moment in a depression and able to seize a loaded weapon.
Most murders occur within a family. Stranger danger may be real, but danger from family and friends is far more the rule instead of the exception. Crimes of the spur of the moment are made more horrible when the power of a gun is there. Then there is denial among those close to an individual. Several years ago, a man who had been red flagged by Illinois was given back his weapon, and he used it to commit mass murder in a Nashville Waffle House. Seldom are families realistic. Those that are suffer lifetimes of lonely dealings with loved ones who have mental illness.
What are we to do? A good first step should be rational discussion. We should all be able to agree on certain military weapons reserved for a military that is controlled by reasonable men (that one is threatened now). No one wants to live in a society where every nut can own a bazooka. Another place where agreement should be easy is the safe handling of firearms. Locking up guns where children cannot access them is a no brainer. Spending time with your children to teach them about the extraordinary power guns give the person and the corresponding responsibility should be an easy point of agreement.
We live at a time where reason has been replaced with reality TV. Perhaps we can re-assert our commitment to sane society one day.
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If we are going to be such a gun happy culture, we need a federal law that would attempt to keep guns out of the hands of children. All homes with minor children should be required to store guns in good quality lock boxes or gun safes. People should not be allowed to keep guns in their vehicles overnight. In Florida which is a “second amendment” state, numerous weapons are stolen at night from cares and trucks, and wandering children may also find their way into an unlocked family car when parents are away or sleeping. This is the least we should do to try to protect our most vulnerable people from themselves.
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cx: cars
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