SallyRand

The term "children" was re-defined a while back to include 18-19 year-olds who shot each other in drug related violence because the true numbers were going down and the stats were no longer working well for the gun grabbers:

http://www.tincher.to/deaths.htm

"Gun-related deaths in the USA"

Statistics and causes

The definitive source for US injury death statistics is the Centers For Disease Control National Center for Injury Prevention & Control website which provides statistics on all deaths by injury, not just gun deaths. To get the number of gun deaths for a year just set the Cause of Injury to Firearm. If you only want to know the number of child gun deaths per year then choose the custom age range and input 0 years ( <1 ) as the lowest age and 17 years as the top age. Be sure to select "No Age-Adjusting Requested" if you are only interested in a particular age group.

Note that the CDC child gun death figures are typically half of the figures that the gun control lobby publishes. The difference is in the definition of a child. The gun control lobby counts young adults that are 18 or 19 years old as children, but they do not count 20 year olds as children. You can choose from one of two possible reasons, depending on your level of cynicism: 1. The standard CDC age groups used to go from 0-19, 20-39, etc and the gun control lobby couldn't figure out how to select a custom age group. 2. Counting 18 and 19 year olds as children doubles the number of so-called child gun deaths, and more child gun deaths means more support for gun control.

In 1999 there were 1776 gun deaths in the 0 through 17 age group and 3385 gun deaths in the 0 through 19 age group. By subtraction we find that there were a whopping 1609 gun deaths in just the 18 through 19 age group. Historically the 18 through 24 age group is the highest crime-committing group. At age 18 part-time drug dealers leave school and become full-time drug dealers. Despite the propaganda from the gun control lobby, criminals in general and drug dealers in particular are the group of so-called children most likely to be shot by their fellow criminals. You can verify this by reading the local gun death news stories in any city newspaper. School shootings are so rare that every one gets national television coverage, but drug dealers are shot so often that they are barely mentioned in their local newspaper.

Older people's gun deaths are most likely to be suicides. Suicides typically make up 56.5% of all gun deaths according to the Bureau Of Justice Statistics. In fact, drugs and suicides account for more than 2 out of every 3 gun deaths in the USA.

The best way to prevent gun deaths is to treat depression and other mental illness, teach children not to sell or use illegal drugs, treat drug addiction, and have police concentrate on enforcing drug laws. However, the gun control lobby says that we should spend billions of dollars on gun registration and gun licensing instead of using the money to treat depression and combat drugs. Click here for some sensible ways to prevent gun violence.

The accidental gun death rate has been falling since 1930 and US accidental gun deaths per year were down to 824 by 1999 according to the CDC. Note that it is extremely easy to prevent accidental gun deaths by following Jeff Cooper's Four Rules Of Gun Safety."

Take a look around here also:

http://www.tincher.to/guntips.htm

Top Ten "Gun-Control" Myths

MYTH: Most gun deaths are caused by accidents or by crazed madmen.
FACT: More than two out of every three gun deaths are either suicides or drug-related murders.
Source: Centers For Disease Control - Deaths 1998 (625KB document!) and U.S. Department Of Justice - Bureau of Justice Statistics

MYTH: Twelve children are killed with guns each day.
FACT: Half of the people that politicians count as "children killed with guns" were actually legally adults. The gun murder rate started falling when crack cocaine started going out of style in 1990. In 1997, 2284 children aged 0-17 years were killed with guns, most of them teenagers. That is 6 per day. In 1998, the number dropped to 1971, still mostly teenagers. That is 5 per day. The age distribution of child gun deaths tracks the age distribution of child drug dealers.
Source: Centers For Disease Control

MYTH: The best way to protect children from guns is to keep children ignorant about them.
FACT: The best way to protect children from guns is to teach them gun safety and lock up guns whenever it is practical to do so. "Ignorance is best" is the old argument against sex-education, reworded by the same people who ridiculed it when it was used by sex-education opponents. With more than 250 million guns in the USA, children will encounter one sooner or later, especially if they live around police, security guards, hunters, or the military.

MYTH: Trigger locks are the best protection against unauthorized gun use.
FACT: The best protection against unauthorized gun use is to keep guns in a child-proof burglar-proof safe whenever they are not being used for hunting, self-protection, or target-shooting. Trigger locks do not protect guns from being stolen, and an improperly-installed trigger lock can cause a gun to fire accidentally, especially if the gun is dropped.

MYTH: The politicians who talk loudest about "gun-control" work hard to prevent gun violence.
FACT: After demanding passage of the Brady Law, the Clinton-Gore administration prosecuted fewer than 5 out of every 100 convicted felons who violated the law. In 1998 only 102 out of 90,000 were federally prosecuted.
Source: U.S. Department Of Justice - Bureau of Justice Statistics, courtesy of US Congressman John Dingell

MYTH: If guns were illegal, criminals would not have guns.
FACT: Guns are readily available in China, Eastern Europe, and illegal-drug-producing countries such as Mexico and Columbia. Criminals smuggled 690,000 pounds of cocaine into the USA in the first 6 months of 2000. Thousands of guns can be hidden in 690,000 pounds of cocaine.
Source: USA Today newspaper, 28 September 2000, page 3A

MYTH: Mandatory gun registration means all guns must be registered.
FACT: Because it is already illegal for convicted felons to own guns, the Fifth Amendment protects felons from being forced to incriminate themselves by registering their guns. Any criminal can easily avoid gun registration by committing a felony and getting probation, or by storing his guns at the home of a convicted felon. If his existing guns are confiscated, he can buy more from any drug dealer.
Source: Fifth Amendment To The Constitution Of The United States and the US Supreme Court ruling Haynes Versus United States

MYTH: "Gun-control" organizations are run by dedicated volunteers.
FACT: The president of Handgun Control Incorporated (HCI) makes more than $150,000 per year from gun violence.
Source: HCI financial filings

MYTH: The National Rifle Association (NRA) is evil.
FACT: For several decades the NRA has been working to reduce gun deaths. Their "Eddie Eagle" videos teach young children that when they encounter a gun they should: "Stop! Don't touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult." The NRA's magazines are full of advertisements for child-proof burglar-proof gun safes. The NRA-supported Project Exile has reduced gun deaths in Richmond, Virginia by strongly punishing criminals who use guns in crimes. The NRA has selfish reasons to fight gun violence: More gun deaths means more votes for anti-gun politicians and more money for multi-million-dollar "gun-control" businesses such as Handgun Control Incorporated.
Source: NRA "Eddie Eagle" videotape and American Rifleman magazine

MYTH: "Gun-control" laws worked in England.
FACT: After more than fifty years of "sensible gun-control laws," English criminals have more than three million illegal guns, twice as many as ten years ago.
Source: The Sunday Times newspaper, 16 January 2000, Killings rise as 3m illegal guns flood Britain and The Guardian newspaper, 23 October 2000, US-style gun law comes to Britain