From F. Paul Valone, president of gun rights group Grassroots North Carolina, in response to “Let’s love our children more than we do our guns” (Feb. 25 What Others Are Saying):
Accidentally killed with her father’s gun, 3 1/2-year-old Zuri Chambers became the most recent child exploited by gun ban advocates who tug at your heart strings while lying to your face. A recent Palm Beach Post column reprinted in the Observer claimed: “These tragic accidents are becoming far too common.”
Fortunately for children, that assertion is false. Since 1930, accidental gun deaths among U.S. children have plummeted by 81 percent even as our population doubled. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), between 1999 and 2010 the rate of accidental gun deaths for children under age 15 dropped by 32 percent. To understand the relative threat of guns, consider that in 2010, poisoning killed 94 children; smoke and fire, 303; drowning, 736; and motor vehicles, a horrific 1,418. By contrast, gun accidents claimed 62.
Aping recent ABC News propaganda, the piece insists: “Sadly, one study reports some 7,500 children were admitted to U.S. hospitals with gunshot wounds last year. About 500 of them died.”
This half-truth rests on selectively quoting a “Pediatrics” journal article, then lumping together varying demographics and intentionality, and finally defining as “children” gang members up to age 19.
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