“Did states enacting permissive firearm laws after 2010—when McDonald v Chicago was decided by the US Supreme Court—subsequently experience higher rates of pediatric firearm mortality?” a Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics investigation published Monday asks. Per the “findings” presented by the research team, they answer their own question with an assertion that “permissive firearm laws contributed to thousands of excess firearm deaths among children living in states with permissive policies.”
It’s a curious conclusion, because what McDonald did was recognize that, through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Second Amendment was applicable to state and local governments as well as to federal laws. Nowhere did it, or laws arising from that decision, authorize the criminal population responsible for the overwhelming majority of homicides to possess and use guns, meaning nothing really had changed for them. The correlation/causation nexus is unclear.
There’s also an all-too-familiar word game going on. In light of “shall not be infringed,” gun laws — even “loosened” ones — are restrictive, not “permissive.” Tell me these guys don’t have an agenda.
Also unclear from the Abstract is the relationship between rates and actual numbers, meaning states with smaller populations will experience greater rates than states with higher populations, experiencing greater numbers. Add to that the disputed contention that “Firearms are the leading cause of death in US children and adolescents.”
Economist, author and Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott refutes that claim by showing how the numbers are manipulated. And as long as we’re referencing Lott’s work, we might ask why the JAMA researchers have ignored it. With more guns resulting in less crime, they might well ask how many more children would have died during the “study” period had prohibitions not been relaxed. But there is one area where both Lott and JAMA appear to find common ground:
“In the most permissive states, the largest increase occurred in the non-Hispanic Black pediatric population.”
“Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties, murders are concentrated in small areas inside them,” Lott has shown. Just because it’s a red state does not mean it is without concentrated areas of blue.
But none of this matters, at least as far as the anti-gun establishment media is concerned. Talking points have been passed out, and it’s now their “job” to parrot the narrative and influence those who still turn to it to be “informed.” Thus, we see a plethora of similar sentiment headlines:
- The New York Times: “Gun Deaths of Children Rose in States That Loosened Gun Laws, Study Finds”
- yahoo!news: “Looser gun laws tied to thousands more US child shooting deaths”
- abcNews: “Gun deaths among children surge after states loosen firearm laws, new study finds”
- CNN: “States that weakened gun laws saw rise in pediatric mortality, study finds”
We could go on, but the point is made. Except for one: now find a report on this written with a pro-Second Amendment perspective in the Google News feed to confirm what the average American voter, who doesn’t frequent sites like this, is not being told.
It’s always dangerous to try and refute a study with an anecdote, except this one seems relevant to the topic at hand and it’s not exactly like we haven’t seen similar stories before that have bearing. From NBC affiliate WTHR 13News, Indianapolis:
“3-year-old killed in accidental shooting after finding father’s gun in couch in southern Indiana… The father was arrested and now faces preliminary charges of neglect of a dependent causing death, unlawful carrying of a handgun by a felon and possession of marijuana.”
What “permissive gun law” loosened by McDonald would the study authors say “contributed to” this death?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
