-
- A new statistical analysis report shows that despite
a child-homicide rate in the United States which surpasses that of most
other Western nations, firearms are near the bottom of the list of causes
for the alarming statistics.
-
- According to a report drafted by Iain Murray, a senior
research analyst at the Statistical Assessment Service, a Washington-based
non-profit, non-partisan think tank, "in the rush to reduce America's
high juvenile homicide rates into a gun-control debate, we're missing the
chilling bigger picture of the real and deadly risks our children face,
and what it says about our society."
-
- The most recent statistical data available on child homicide
rates, Murray said, indicated that the U.S. had the highest infant-child
homicide rate -- four times as high -- as all other Western nations surveyed,
at 4.1 children per 100,000 people.
-
- But "for every American child 4 or younger"
that is murdered, he said, "more than eight others die violently by
other means -- blunt objects, strangulation or, most commonly, hands, fists
or feet."
-
- Even in the 5-14 age group, he said, the U.S. non-gun
murder rate is more than double the rates taken from the international
sampling group, "although the rate of murders by firearms does increase
considerably as children get older."
-
- One of the most recent high-profile child murder cases
involving a gun was the shooting death of six-year-old Kayla Rolland, who
was killed by a classmate in a Michigan school last month. As expected,
the incident sparked more calls for childproofing handguns -- such as adding
trigger locks -- from traditional gun control advocates and from the Clinton
administration.
-
- Some experts have said the Rolland case may even have
been the impetus for Smith & Wesson, one of the nation's largest handgun
makers, to strike a deal with the administration that would prevent the
company from being sued by municipalities and the Justice Department, who
say gun makers shoulder responsibility for illegal acts committed with
guns they manufacture. Specifically, Smith & Wesson executives agreed
to add trigger locks to all handguns sold by the company, and to forbid
shipment of their handguns to dealers who would not agree to the company's
new childproof packaging mandates.
-
- But Murray said the statistics don't measure up to the
hype.
-
- "While the rate of child gun homicide in the U.S.
is much higher than elsewhere -- as everyone acknowledges -- so is the
rate of non-gun murder," he said. "Even if all the gun homicides
were taken out of the equation, America would still have an infant-homicide
rate more than 3.5 times as high as the other Western countries,"
a phenomenon he called "staggering."
-
- America's obsession with guns and gun violence, Murray
said, is understandable, but that obsession is "blinding us to another
significant social problem," noting that in 1997 alone, 738 children
under the age of 13 were murdered across the country (but only 133 by guns,
according to the FBI).
-
- "America is witnessing something barbaric happening
to its young children," Murray said, noting that the figures might
be unbelievable had they not been tallied by official U.S. government sources.
-
- He said the case of another child, 23-month-old Brianna
Blackmond, "is more typical of the young children killed in this country."
She died in January from a blow to the head given to her by her mother
after being returned from a foster home.
-
- "But how much press attention did that death receive
outside Washington, compared with Kayla Rolland's tragic but unusual death?"
Murray asked.
-
- It is also important to note, he said, "that the
main thrust of the 'Kids and Guns' study" -- a recent government report
-- "is that the rise and subsequent fall in the murder rate among
older juveniles in the 1990s was driven by firearm murders and the consequent
gun-control measures. ... But this does not apply to murders of children
aged 13 or younger."
-
- Murray said the murder rate in that group was 1.8 per
100,000 in 1976 and 1.7 in 1997, "never having risen above 2.1 in
the intervening 20 years."
-
- "Children under 13 are being killed just about as
often now as they were during the height of the crack-fueled murder boom
of the early 1990s," said the STATS researcher. "If anything
has been done to combat the problem, it hasn't worked," which, ostensibly,
includes a number of new gun-control laws that have been passed over the
last 20 years.
-
- Yet the data show something surprising: 85 percent of
U.S. counties reported no child homicides -- by any cause -- in 1997, while
just 7 percent experienced two or more.
-
- "In great swaths of the country, child murder is
virtually unknown," Murray said. "The problem is confined mainly
to the big cities of the East and West coasts, and to the Southwest."
-
- The research analyst also questioned the wisdom of universal
gun laws emanating from the federal level. Though gun violence in otherwise
peaceful suburban communities seems to garner headlines, "the overwhelming
majority of child murders happen elsewhere. This fact alone would imply
that across-the-board federal solutions affecting the entire country may
be misplaced," he said.
-
- Though it would seem more sensible to use government
resources to "concentrate where the problem is the greatest,"
Murray added that other feel-good measures, such as having "pediatricians
nationwide ... talk to all young children about guns," as some national
pediatric groups have proposed, "is well-intentioned, but will achieve
little."
-
- "By letting ourselves believe that guns are the
problem for pre-adolescents, we are avoiding the unpalatable truth that
something is very wrong in American society," Murray said. "We
focus on exceptional cases, and ignore the unsettling nature of the daily
reality."
-
- But, he said, there may be "a lesson here."
-
- "We may be able to reduce child-murder rates to
the levels of other countries if we concentrate on what causes those murders
-- and guns aren't the biggest factor."
-
- There may be a hidden "domino effect," he said,
that causes children who live in unstable or dangerous environments "where
their lives have little value" to also regard the lives of others
in the same light "when they are seduced by the power of the gun."
Breaking that cycle and making childhood safer and saving the lives of
the youngest children may help save older children down the road, Murray
said.
-
- "Perhaps the safety locks we most need are the ones
that other civilized countries place in their citizens' consciences,"
he said. While the tragic deaths of the "Kayla Rollands are thankfully
the exception rather than the rule ... it is the Brianna Blackmonds who
really deserve the attention of the nation's doctors and the president."
-
-
- Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter for WorldNetDaily.
-
- SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|