Michael Bloomberg-founded Everytown for Gun Safety claims the record-setting gun sales of March and April 2020 resulted in a situation where “children” are accidentally shooting people at increased levels.
CBS News quoted Shannon Watts, founder of Everytown affiliate Moms Demand Action, saying:
We know that there are risks to having guns in the home, and with the surge in gun sales in the last two months, it could create more opportunity for kids to gain access to guns and unintentionally hurt themselves or someone else. The numbers show there’s been an increase in these horrible shooting tragedies during the time the pandemic was at its peak.
They then turn to Everytown research director Sarah Burd-Sharps and report: “In March and April of 2020, unintentional shootings by children under 17 led to 21 deaths, as compared to an average of 15 deaths for the same time period between 2017 and 2019.”
For some reason the 2018 figures were omitted, and close examination of those figures shows they were not only higher than 2019 but also considerably higher than the numbers being witnessed now. The “average of 15 deaths” in 2019 and 21 deaths in 2020 were both outpaced by the 34 deaths in 2018.
Everytown’s database counts teenagers up to 17-years-old as children, and their list is based on media reports of accidental firearm discharges.
The list for 2019 includes a 19-year-old, a 25-year-old, and an 28-year-old, all of whom were shot by someone else.
On January 30, 2014, Breitbart News did report on 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures showing that more children, aged 10 and under, were killed by fire and water than accidental gun deaths.
In fact, the number of children unintentionally killed in fire-related deaths was over seven times higher than the number of children killed in unintentional gun-related deaths, and the number of children killed in unintentional drowning deaths was 16 times higher than the number of children killed in unintentional gun-related deaths.
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. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
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