From: hays@ssd.intel.com (Kirk Hays)
Subject: Re: Kids and Guns
Organization: Intel Supercomputer Systems Division
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 22:32:05 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.201059.24077@icd.ab.com>, kdw@icd.ab.com (Kenneth D. Whitehead) writes:
|> I was just listening to the news and the newsbabe said that a kid
|> gets killed by a gun every 3 hours.  I presume that she means in the
|> US, since the info came from a US gungrabber group.
|> 
|> That's 2,920 kids per year.  Anybody got any stats on this?  I don't
|> believe it.
|> 
|> Ken Whitehead

RKBA.004:
==================

RKBA.004 - Children and firearms
           Version 1.1 (last changed on 90/04/25 at 21:44:23)


DESCRIPTION
============
One of the most emotional issues that people confront is death. Death of 
children can be even more emotional, playing on our concern for the young and 
helpless.

Shortly after the February 6, 1989 issue of TIME magazine, a fairly long lived 
debate began in talk.politics.guns on the issue of children killed by 
firearms.

Letters to TIME magazine in the weeks that followed that issue claimed figures 
such as "over 3,400 children" are killed each year by firearms. One poster to 
talk.politics.guns claimed that the figure was "ten thousand children" killed 
each year.

In actuality, the total number of children (ages up to and including 14) 
killed by firearms, deliberately or accidently, is typically 500 to 600 a 
year.

SUMMARY
=======
Total firearm deaths for children (<1 through 14) at 587 (1988) is one of the 
SMALLEST causes of deaths in children. Cars, falls, burns, drowning, food 
ingestion are all much larger cause of deaths (7,988).

Deaths of all types, including firearms, rise dramatically starting at age 15, 
peaking at 17 through 22 (the really dangerous years).

CONCLUSION
==========
The use of the phrase "thousands of children killed" is an emotional 
propagandistic phrase designed to play on our worst fears. Be aware that TIME 
magazine has printed a letter from a "doctor" who claimed that 3,312 children
are killed "by guns" each year. The only way to achieve that figure is to 
count as children all people from age 0 through and including 24!

(Ages 0 through 24 is a common statistical grouping in many sources).

Watch out for inclusion of ages 16, 17, and 18 into the "children" group. 
IMHO, children can not drive, drink beer, or join the military, all things 
possible in those three years.




            MURDERS AND NON-NEGLIGENT HOMICIDES (1988)
     AGE    By firearms   Other (cutting, stabbing, blunt objects, poison...)
     < 1    10            230
  1 to 4    44            289
  5 to 9    56             96
10 to 14   136             91
--------   ---            ---
           246            706



Total deaths (accidental and non-murder) ages up to and including 24 were 
54,207 (1985). In 1985, total firearm accidental and non-murder deaths was 755 
for the same age group.

    AGE  Accidental deaths by firearms
    <1     2
     1     5
     2    12
     3    10
     4    14
     5     9
     6     9
     7    10
     8    12
     9    18
    10    27
    11    23
    12    37
    13    38
    14    52
         ---
         278

    15    57
    16    52
    17    42
    ---  ---
         429


FUTURE
======
As I do the research, I will break these statistics down into 1 year 
increments, using 1989 statistics, from ages 0 through 24.

Sources: NSC88, TIME06FEB89, UCR89.

-end-
--------------------- If you don't see the moral answer to the problem, use --
Phil Ronzone
pkr@sgi.COM {decwrl,sun}!sgi!pkr
--------------------- the universal can opener: "Whose property/life is it?" --




-- 
Kirk Hays - NRA Life.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing."  -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns