USA Today, accidents, and "unsecured" guns

According to the Consumer Products Safety Commission and the Center for Disease Control: "Children: In 2001, 859 children ages 0 to 14 years died from drowning (CDC 2003). While drowning rates have slowly declined (Branche 1999), drowning remains the second-leading cause of injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years (CDC 2003). "

How many homes have unsecured pools (swimming and wading - swimming pools are the "assault weapons of pools"); bathtubs; sinks; toliets and buckets (again, from the CDC: "Children under age one most often drown in bathtubs, buckets, or toilets (Brenner et al. 2001))?

One death is too many! Ban high-capacity "assault pools" and "easily concealed Saturday-night buckets"! Mandate Federal waiting periods and background checks for water! Do it for the children!

I covered the Tucson Citizen's take on this USA Today story in Fact Checking for The Children™. While it can be misunderstood, the article was correct that (approximately) 1400 people under the age of 18 were killed by gunshot in 2002. I used the CDC WISQARS tool to break down the data and provide some comparison.

Tim Lambert of Deltoid has linked to this piece, and one of his commenters has linked to mine.

I posted this at Deltoid, but I'll cross-post it here and at Kevin's place as well, because I think it raises an interesting question.
-----------------

Both homicide and suicide by definition require intent. Once the intent to kill has been formed, it’s seldom difficult to find means of putting that intent into effect. Thus, Tim, I don’t find your claim that “easy access to a loaded gun by a child could certainly be a factor in [firearm suicides and homicides by minors]” very persuasive at all. Perhaps it could be a factor, but what’s the evidence that it is a factor? Hardy’s decision to exclude intentional killings tracks my own intuitions much more closely than your argument for including them.

Now, here’s a broader question about the legitimacy of using CDC mortality data as a basis for arguments about safe storage laws, and it’s not just directed at Tim. I welcome a reply from anyone with a good answer.

Unless I’m missing something, I think the CDC data tells us almost nothing useful about the meed for or possible benefits of safe storage laws. My question is: Am I missing something?

Everyone seems to assume, for purposes of this discussion, that child firearm deaths are caused by children, who wouldn’t have access to guns if only safe storage laws were in effect. But even leaving aside the question of how effective safe storage laws would be at denying children access to firearms, I’m not at all convinced that we know who causes child firearm deaths, other than suicides. The CDC data breaks down mortality by the age of the victim, not the age of the perpetrator (and I am here using “perpetrator” to include people responsible for accidental deaths). On what basis can we conclude that perpetrators and victims are of even approximately the same ages?

For example, if an adult father accidentally shoots his ten year-old son to death, that death is included in the CDC mortality data as an accidental firearm death for a 10 year-old, right? But I think we can all agree that a “safe storage” law would be unlikely to prevent such a death, unless “safe storage” includes a prohibition on adults even possessing firearms in the presence of children.

The same goes for parents who intentionally kill their children with guns. (I don’t say “murder” because that’s a legal term with specific meaning, and doesn’t include all intentional homicides.) Those deaths, too, go down on the CDC’s rolls as child firearm homicides yet, even moreso than with accidental shootings, are unlikely to be affected by safe storage laws.

On the flip-side, the death of an adult due to the actions of a gun-wielding minor — whether accidental or intentional — is recorded as an adult firearm death by CDC, and isn’t included in the data that USA Today cites. Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that safe storage laws would be at least partially effective at preventing kids from getting their hands on guns, shouldn’t we count these adult deaths as part of the argument for safe storage requirements? Of course we’d also need to know what proportion of the child perpetrators had gained control of their guns without adult acquiescence, versus those who were given access to their guns by adults. If I give my son a rifle and take him hunting, and he accidentally kills me, that’s not a death that any safe storage law (as that term is commonly understood) could have prevented.

In summary, it seems to me that CDC mortality data makes a very poor tool for analyzing the need for or likely effects of safe storage laws. I’d think we would need much higher resolution before we could talk intelligently about those issues.

Again: Am I missing something?

My 9 year-old son took one of his father's unsecured hand guns from his nightstand drawer today. The weapon was loaded. It discharged. I have three young sons. Thank God, I still have three young sons.

His father now understands why I have begged him to secure his weapons.... and why all weapons should be secured.

It is a matter of safety.... or am I missing something?

Jennifer

Well Jennifer,
Have you and hubby taken your children out and actually taught them about guns? Taken them shooting at targets? A gun safety course??? If you had, your kid would not have done that, because as a "Responsible" gun owner, you would have made sure your kids know not to touch a gun.