Anti-gunners from the White House on down love to repeat the mantra that “gun violence is the leading cause of death for children.” Even though this is patently false.
President Joe Biden regurgitated this claim regularly since his 2019 declaration that the weapons industry is “the enemy.” The falsehood that guns are the leading cause of death for children is used to prop up the seemingly weekly unilateral actions from the Oval Office to chip away at Second Amendment rights.
Vice President Kamala Harris parroted the talking point at a pair of recent events at the Capitol and in North Carolina.
And for the record, noting this inaccuracy is not solely to disparage the administration. Senators and Representatives and members of the mainstream media have breathlessly repeated the falsehood until it is assumed to be true.
But the Washington Post, a stalwart opponent of the right to keep and bear arms, was forced to take an honest look at the claim.
And it is false.
As the Post grudgingly noted, “When you focus only on children — 17 and younger — motor vehicle deaths (broadly defined) still rank No. 1, as they have for six decades. 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 18 — whether or not infants are included.”
The origin of the falsehood was a study published in April 2022 by the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention. Researchers deceptively included ages 18-19 in the findings, skewing the data to determine that gun violence was the leading cause of death among children.
Gun rights advocates quickly and thoroughly debunked the findings, and now the Washington Post also confessed that the talking point is false.
