Do they think we won't catch them and rub their noses in their attempted deception? Or are they so stupid that they can't read the actual numbers? And they have the tag line "Real Stories. Real Honest. Real Moms".
The lady doth insist too much, methinks.
Here are the scare quotes:
More than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshots. Some shoot themselves, while others kill friends or siblings after discovering a gun.
Here are more scary stats: Americans own 200 million firearms, and 35 percent of homes contain at least one gun. Last year, a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found more than 1.7 million children live in homes with loaded and unlocked guns.
The problem is that according to the CDC we have this data (2006 is the most recent I found--see table 10):
| Cause of death (based on ICD, 2004) |
All ages |
Under 1 year |
1-4 years |
5-14 years |
15-24 years |
25-34 years |
35-44 years |
45-54 years |
55-64 years |
65-74 years |
75-84 years |
85 years and over |
| Accidental discharge of firearms (W32-W34) |
642 |
- |
13 |
41 |
193 |
113 |
74 |
84 |
49 |
33 |
34 |
8 |
|
So in order to arrive at "more than 500 children die annually" you would have to include "children" as old as 54 years old. Sure a lot of people want the government to treat people as children even at this age but it's lying to actually include them in your children totals.
The real number is 54 children per year instead of "more than 500". They are only off by a factor of 10.
So, assuming their 1.7 million number is right then the odds of one of those children in homes with loaded and unlocked guns accidentally being killed with a firearm is 54/1,700,000 or 1 in 31,481 (0.0032%) per year.
Gee... I wonder if they have an agenda. If they don't then why do they inflate the numbers by a factor of 10? Crap for brains and/or the truth is just too inconvenient for them? You decide.