09/15/2026
GUNS ARE NOT THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN CHILDREN:
For decades, gun control advocates and their allies in “public health” have pushed versions of this factoid about “children” and fi****ms.
As we pointed out last week, this is how the ploy works: Step one, acquire statistics on firearm-related deaths among children ages 0-14. Step two, combine that relatively low number with the far greater number of firearm-related deaths involving juveniles and young adults ages 15-17, 15-19, or even ages 15-24. Step three, present the resulting data as the shocking number of “children” (ages 0-17, 0-19 or 0-24) who are subjected to “gun violence” each day/week/month/year. Step four, use the disingenuous statistic to advocate for pre-determined gun control policies (often unenforceable “safe storage” laws) by claiming “gun violence is the leading cause of death of children.”
Consider the data on those who may be properly defined as children – ages 0-14. For this cohort, firearm-related injuries are not the leading causes of death and are not higher than motor vehicle deaths.
This does shift when examining the cohorts ages 15-17, 15-19, or 15-24. Roughly 70-percent of the firearm-related deaths that occur in the 0-17 age group happened among the juveniles ages 15-17 in 2023. This disparity shouldn’t be surprising. The 15-17 cohort is far more often engaged in the type of street crime that can give rise to firearm-related violence and that many jurisdictions have decided to address in a more lenient manner in recent years.
