This article was printed from KeepAndBearArms.com.
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President Clinton, using Handgun Control Inc. (HCI)
figures, recently asserted that "13 kids" are killed by
guns each day in America. "That statement is
fraudulent," according to civil rights activist Aaron
Zelman. "Americans should demand full disclosure.
We’re getting half-truths and lies."
Documents obtained from HCI reveal the deception:
the "13 kids" figure includes people "ages 19 and
under." Using that category, legal adults ages 18 and
19 are misleadingly counted as "kids." Zelman noted
"if a salesman sold you a home or car by giving you
doctored information, then you could sue him for fraud.
HCI is steering Clinton to defraud Americans using
trick data."
Using the deceptive HCI figures, the Clinton
administration claims that more victim disarmament laws
(euphemistically called "gun control") will save young
children’s lives. Actual data from the National Center
for Health Statistics (NCSH) prove otherwise. Less
than 0.3% of all victims of lethal misuse of firearms
were children under 5 years of age. Less than .07% of
the total deaths from firearms misuse were accident
victims under age 5.
"Saying that toddlers are shooting one another with
guns is an outright lie," Zelman stated. "Americans
prevent crimes about 5,500 times per day using
firearms. HCI is concealing that fact."
NCSH reported firearms-related deaths in America
for 1997 totaling 32,436. There were 9 victims under
one year of age, 75 victims between one and four years
of age, and 546 victims between five and fourteen years
of age. These figures correspond to 0.03%, 0.23%, and
1.6%, respectively. "The true figures show that over
98% of people killed by firearms misuse are not young
children," Zelman observed.
So-called "gun safety devices" can have little or
no effect on firearms misuse. Linda Gorman, a
researcher at the Independence Institute, recently
concluded that "most of the proposed ’safe storage’
measures can be defeated by 15-year-olds." Devices
such as mandatory trigger locks would not "have much
effect on suicides or homicides in older age groups,"
Gorman noted.
Darrell Huff, author of
How to Lie With Statistics, wrote that "a well-wrapped statistic
is better than Hitler’s ’big lie’; it misleads, yet it cannot be
pinned on you." Zelman vowed his organization would
"pin these false stats on the people who try to fool
the American public."
Notes
1. The 13 kids per day ... comes from the transcript of Pres. Clinton's Today
Show appearance ... which was forwarded to me as e-mail. I have heard the clip
played on Rush Limbaugh as well.
2. HCI's information was set forth at their website:
http://www.handguncontrol.org/protecting/D1/children-guns.htm
(since JPFO's actions, HCI's LIE has mysteriously disappeared.)
3. The "true facts" about the child death rates comes from National Center for
Health Statistics, Final Data for 1997, at website:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/99facts/99sheets/97mortal.htm
4. Statements by Linda Gorman, Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute, come
from "Some Frequently Overlooked Facts in Gun Policy Discussions," Independence
Institute, November 9, 1999 at
http://www.i2i.org/SuptDocs/Crime/OverlookedFacts.htm
5. The 5,500 DGU per day is an average taken by dividing 2,000,000 by 365 days
and rounding. GOA Fact sheet provides the original references to Professor Kleck's
studies. The one usually cited is G. Kleck and M. Gertz, "Armed Resistance to
Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Journal of Criminal
Law and Criminology, Volume 86, pp. 150-187 (Fall 1995).
6. The quote from Darrell Huff is in the book itself which is referenced in the
Press Release, at page 9.
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