CLAIM: Texas state senator and U.S. Senate candidate Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) proclaimed, “Guns are the number one killer of our kids,” on his X account Thursday.
VERDICT: FALSE. CDC data shows motor vehicle deaths surpassed firearm-related deaths for children aged 0-17, according to a fact check done by Breitbart News after President Biden first made the claim in 2022.
The left has been claiming guns are the number one killer of children since mid-summer 2022, when President Biden first made the claim.
Gutierrez joined the Democratic primary in July to challenge Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for the U.S. Senate seat in 2024.
On Thursday, Gutierrez tweeted:
Breitbart News has done a fact check on the claim that guns are the number one killer of children numerous times, beginning with a June 2, 2022, fact check on Biden’s claim that “guns are the number one killer of children.”
The fact check revealed that Biden’s claim was only true if you count 18- and 19-year-olds as children.
The claim rests on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) figures quoted by FOX News on May 26, 2022. Those figures show firearm-related deaths of people ages 0-19 totaled 4,368 in 2020, while motor vehicle deaths for the same age range totaled 4,036.
However, a custom search on the CDC numbers, with the category of “children” limited to those 0-17, i.e., those below voting age, shows the data completely flips. The number of firearm-related deaths for children aged 0-17 was 2,281 in 2020, while the number of motor vehicle deaths for the same ages was 2,503.
Moreover, a deeper look into the figures — even at the expanded age range of 0-19 — showed unintentional motor vehicle deaths were 27 times higher than unintentional firearm-related deaths for the group Biden described as “children.”
Biden has repeated the claim numerous times, as has Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), former President Barack Obama (D), and actress Alyssa Milano, among others.
Now Roland Gutierrez has renewed the claim, but it is still false.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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