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| There was certainly some bristling in Jonesboro about the world’s attention on the Arkansas’ children’s easy access to high-powered guns, and their use and familiarity with them at ages far too young to drive a car, etc. There was also, according to Eric, some bristling against the world looking into the possible paddle connection in this case. | | But what would we find if we looked at broader statistics for Arkansas? Surely the pro-paddling preachers and politicians passing “zero tolerance” and “more paddling” and “teacher protection act” laws are knowledgeable that this will help end school shootings and gun deaths, aren’t they? Surely when they spout platitudes about more paddling to end gun violence they did at least a tad bit of homework, didn’t they? Surely the by far highest paddling states in the US, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama, are some of the safest places in the US when it comes to gun deaths, since they paddle a far higher percentage of students than anyone else? | | The July-August 2002 issue of “Work & Family,” a publication that is printed for distribution to workplaces and organizations, had a little “Research and Review” article called “Some scary stats on guns and kids.” It was based on a Harvard study that appeared in the Economist, (March 2, 2002). | | The article (and study) noted that nearly 7,000 children between 5 and 14 were killed with firearms between the decade from 1988-97. Firearm death, in fact, kills more American children than anything else outside of motor vehicle deaths and cancer. Further, children living in the “enlightened, paddling US” are more than 12 times as likely to die of gun deaths than in any other industrialized country on earth. | | “But Jeff—we’ve only heard of a few dozen gun deaths in the news, maybe a hundred or so at most. What about those 7,000 other child gun deaths?” Surprise! The media focus on the sensational but rare cases hides the fact that actual school gun deaths have declined, and it hides the fact that the vast majority of child gun deaths are not from school mass shootings. The percentage of gun deaths that, horrific as they are, became the sole subject of America’s attention on children and gun deaths, including inane laws for “more paddling” and “zero tolerance,” even though these traits of schools, if anything, increase the risk for violence, account for only a small percentage of child gun deaths in the US. | | What about “more paddling?” Would that help? The study didn’t examine that aspect, but it did note that high gun ownership states had dramatically higher child gun-death rates. | | A direct quote: “Kids between the ages of 5 and 14 in the five states with the highest rates of gun ownership (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and West Virginia) were 16 times more likely to die from a gun accident than children in the five states with the lowest rate of gun ownership (Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Delaware).” |
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