At least 157 people were killed and 270 were injured last year in unintentional shootings by children, according to Everytown, an advocacy group for firearm safety.

  • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    The problem here is they include 15+ year olds all the way to 19 in these stats. Which 15-19 year olds are like 80% of all gang violence. So no safe storage laws are going to stop this type of violence. It’s just bullshit propaganda stats from everytown.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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      9 months ago

      That’s a normal tactic but in this case I went to the data source, Everytown, and reviewed it myself. The highest age included in their data set was 17 and there was a depressing number of children under 8 in there.

      The other thing is that this data was specifically about unintentional shootings, meaning that this wasn’t gang violence.

      It’s basically what’s on the tin. Negligent and Accidental Discharges. Something that Safe Storage can help to address, especially with the younger kids.

      Incidents like this.

      And this.

        • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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          9 months ago

          That hasn’t stopped other studies from defining “kids” as people all the way up to age 21.

          It’s a common tactic used to create scary headlines and twist the discourse.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        While some of these are true, a large portion of these are gang related. They’re carrying without holsters in their pockets. It’s happens a lot and usually isn’t reported unless someone is injured. I totally agree firearms should be stored in safes but the data here is more about negligent gang members usually.