Our friend Matt Manda at the NSSF notes this latest “fact check” from the highly selective stickler Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post. We suppose one brownie point is in order for even bothering to check The Veep’s regurgitation of the Gun Control Industry’s™ claim that guns are the leading cause of death among children in America.
That “statistic” is a steaming load of bovine fecal matter that was dreamed up by anti-gunners and has gotten lots of play in the compliant corporate media (see here, here, and here for a few examples). Color us unsurprised.
But even anti-gunners apparently have at least some vestigial amount of shame. They usually lie through their hoplophobic teeth whenever the subject is guns with zero regard for inconvenient things like facts. In this case, however, they at least tried to jimmy the numbers in order to be able to repeat the falsehood with something resembling a straight face.
To get to something that even approaches reality in this case, they redefined the term “children” to include 18- and 19-year olds. Those are people the rest of us commonly know as “adults.”
As Kessler notes . . .
There’s no question that 18 and 19 signify the final years of being a teenager, but there is also broad agreement around the world that 18 is a threshold age between being a child and adulthood.
You don’t say.
Those who have a vested interest using this bogus-but-headline-worthy statistic to push their anti-gun narrative include these younger adults in their numbers because that brings a lot more people into the equation who are involved in risky behaviors like violent crime, gang disputes, and the drug trade. Combining those age groups with actual under-17 types — actual children — is the only way to claim that guns are the leading cause of death for the group.
Apparently an editor at The Washington Post, which is often understandably mistaken for the public relations arm of the Biden administration, not only noticed Vice President Harris’s use of this bogus talking point, but actually tasked Kessler with checking its veracity.
First Kessler thoroughly Fisked the definition of who is and isn’t a child . . .
The National Institutes of Health, for grant applications, defines a child as “an individual under the age of 18 years.” The European Union has a similar definition. The United Nations, in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, says “a child means every human being below the age of eighteen years.”
All but three states set the age of majority at 18. Alabama and Nebraska set it at 19, while Mississippi sets it at 21. In the United States, one earns the right to vote and the right to join the military at the age of 18.
Moreover, federal law permits the purchase of shotguns and rifles — including semiautomatic weapons — at the age of 18. Twenty-two states have set the minimum age for buying a rifle at 21, according to Everytown for Gun Safety — the same minimum age for buying a handgun.
After much prefatory throat-clearing about the amount of “gun violence” in this country and America’s experience compared to more allegedly civilized corners of the world where civilian firearm ownership is virtually impossible, Kessler finally concludes with this gem when it comes time to award the Pinocchios . . .
In the interest of accuracy, it would be better for White House officials to refer to children and teens when citing these reports. When all motor vehicle accidents are counted, then motor vehicle deaths continue to exceed firearm deaths for children — defined as people under age 18 — whether or not infants are included.
The outcome shifts if only traffic crashes are counted, but it’s probably prudent to take a more conservative approach, as the New England Journal of Medicine does. The data is horrific enough — and the United States is such an outlier — that the toll of gun violence speaks for itself.
We will leave this unrated.
As Manda notes, Kessler simply can’t bring himself to call out the Veep for telling a full-on whopper. Not even a single Pinocchio is apparently justified. Not when the topic is civilian gun ownership which, as all bien pensant media types know deep in their bones, is crass, stupid, and simply wrong.
The poor dear. It must have physically hurt him to write even that much.