Posted on Sep 14, 2015
Do you believe that something that affects only 0.0067% of the US Teen Population (ages 12 to 19) is a national crisis, would you agree?
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I'm not too big of an advocate one way or the other, but when I hear comments like this I immediately do my own research and want to make sure others do as well. Look past the rhetoric, and even the issue itself, and look at the facts in the context of the big picture - read that National level issue. Look for yourself but the numbers from the CDC, National Vital Statics System, and Census says that in 2012, 16,375 kids aged 12 to 19 died from various causes. That represents only 0.0519% of the total 31.5M kids in that age group for 2012 - not a bad mortality rate. Of those deaths, only 2,129 (~13%) were from homicide (not sure how many of those were from a gun but for argument sake lets say all of them were). So, of the total teen population, only 0.0067% of them fell victim to a gun related death. So I ask, can we argue that any event, regardless of what the event is, that only has a 0.0067% chance of happening warrant a national policy shift?
Politics
Public Safety
Gun Control
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 9
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Absolutely not. We need to educate kids on firearms and stop making them so taboo. Some of the most responsible kids I've encountered lived in families that owned guns and from a young age taught their children responsible behavior around firearms. I've also had the privilege of having some of those parents bring their children to the gun range I worked at for further instruction from me (someone outside the household) to ensure their kids have the best knowledge base available to them.
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I think you're right that we use statistics poorly in many cases. We also jump on bandwagons of "fact" often without checking into them to see if they're true. I'll be perfectly honest, I took the numbers you just posted as true and did not verify them.
But I also don't think this dictates a need for a national policy shift.
But I also don't think this dictates a need for a national policy shift.
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Sgt Jeffrey Clish
I was hoping someone would question my numbers. I used this (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db37.pdf) document for the % breakout, and this site for the total numbers for 2012 (http://www.census.gov/population/age/data/2012comp.html). I just think that we need to take things in perspective. The government has limited resources and should have limited control. I would argue focus on the more pressing issues and leave less ones alone...
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Nothing invokes greater emotion than dead kids. Policy changes in this arena are about control and they use dead kids to get it. Every death is tragic but that is life, and life is cheap. People die in droves every single day, some young some old and a bunch in between. Are we going to ban/control cars, alcohol, or fast food restaurants (all of which kill more people)? When is enough, enough? We need to place blame with the individual and not have these knee jerk reactions that will not make any difference whatsoever.
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