BBC Can't do Simple Math, when it Comes to Kids and Guns

Lauvaunti Broadbent, Shot and Killed in Self Defense During Crime Spree  in MN, 2015

Lavaunti Broadbent was shot and killed during a crime spree in Minneapolis in July of 2015. He is one of the statistics from that year. He was 16 years old. He was attempting an armed robbery when a person with a carry permit shot and killed him.

Most children shot and killed in the United States are in their teens. The BBC recently ran a story. In the first sentence, they say that about 1,300 children under the age of 17 die form gun-related injuries each year. That is not true From bbc.com:

About 1,300 US children under the age of 17 die from gun-related injuries per year, a government study has found.

Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also found that guns seriously wounded about 5,800 children each year.

Boys accounted for 82% of all child firearm deaths while black children were 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun, according to the study.

More than half of these deaths were homicides while 38% were ruled suicide.

The study, published in Pediatrics on Monday, also found 6% of firearm-related deaths were fatalities from accidental gun injuries.

Just a few paragraphs down, a quote from Katherine Fowler, the leader of the study, contradicts the BBC's opening sentence.

"Firearm injuries are a leading cause of death among US children aged one to 17 years and contribute substantially each year to premature death, illness and disability of children," said CDC's Katherine Fowler, who led the study.

Fowler's study includes 17-year-olds.  This is probably a case of confirmation bias by the BBC, and clever wording from Fowler.  It "sounds" younger to say "1 to 17 years" than to say "under the age of 18".

The study was done for 3 years, 2012, 2013, 2014. Using the CDCs WISQARS database, I compiled the numbers for 2012, 2013, and 2014. The average for those three years were 1,268, close to what is stated. The average number of 17-year-olds was 384.  That is 30% of the total. Remove the 17-year-olds, as the BBC did through (most likely) confirmation bias, and the real number would be under 900.  It just doesn't sound as scary as 1,300, does it?

In 2015, the numbers jumped up, most likely due to the Ferguson effect.  There were 1,490 total in 2015. Of those, 17-year-olds were 456, or 31%.

The Ferguson effect started in August of 2014, but took some time to build. The term was popularized in May of 2015 by Heather Mac Donald in a Wall Street Journal article. It was in full swing in 2015.  The Ferguson effect refers to the spike in homicides occurring in black city centers when the police pull back for fear of being charged with racism and crimes they did not commit.

80 percent of the children who die of gun-related injuries are 13 years old or older. Black kids account for most of the homicides, non-black kids account for most of the suicides.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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