Guns are NOT the Number One Killer of Kids

In a surprising fact check by the Washington Post of all places, The White House specifically has been called out for making false claims that “guns are the number one killer of children”

The CDC data that was being cited included 18 and 19-year-olds. In the United States, 18 and older are considered adults, not children. Further they would skew the data by not including infants under the age of 1 as they are far more prone to diseases and medical issues unique to the age group.

So what is the number one killer of actual children under the age of 18? Would you believe it is cars? In 2021 motor vehicle deaths accounted for 2,687 deaths in all children under the age of 18. In the same age group guns only accounted for 2,590 deaths.

There were 278 million registered cars in the United States in 2021, but estimates of guns owned in the United States are somewhere between 350 million and 400 million.

In other words, there was 1 child killed for every 103,461 registered vehicles. Using the lower 350 million estimated number of guns in the US there was 1 child killed for every 135,135 guns. While any child killed for any reason is horrific, standing on the graves of children to lay false claims that guns are the number one killer is just wrong.

Of course the WaPo article goes on to claim that the trend in the number of children killed in gun deaths is going up and eventually it may surpass motor vehicles as the number one killer. But this is a rare moment of journalistic integrity that we seem to be missing these days.