CDC Misrepresents Their Crime Data to Promote Gun Control
By mixing children ages 10-14 with older juveniles and young adults more likely to be in gangs, they leave room for misinterpretation. In 2007, there were 2,161 firearms homicide victims ages 0-19. Some interpret that as “6 kids a day murdered by firearms.” Of that total, 264 were children. While still serious, “0.7 children a day” doesn’t sound as dramatic.
In 2007, CDC reported that the firearms homicide rate for true children — under age 15 — was 0.43 (all rates per 100,000 population). For ages 10-14, it was 0.76; for ages 15-17, 5.93; for ages 18-19, 13.19.
Next, CDC didn’t report trends, which indicate decreasing violence. Since 1993, when homicide rates peaked, CDC data shows that child firearms homicide rates declined 54.7%, compared to a 41.1% decline for ages 15+.
Nationally, firearms homicide rates declined more than non-firearms rates (see table below).
Firearms homicide rates for children, already low at 0.95, dropped 54.7% between 1993 and 2007, to 0.43. The smallest rate decrease was in the population group outside this CDC study, age 20+. Children and juveniles saw greater-than-average rate decreases.
Interestingly, firearms homicide rates decreased faster than non-firearms rates, regardless of age group.
Firearm suicide rates decline
Firearm suicide rates, discussed in the CDC report, show similar trends. The child firearm suicide rate was 0.09 in 2007, down 73.6% since 1993. There were no firearms suicides for ages 0-9 in 2007; the rate was 0.26 for ages 10-14. Firearms suicide rates declined much faster than non-firearm suicides for children (see table below).
For ages 0-19, non-firearms suicide rates are higher than firearms rates, 1.19 and 0.82, respectively. Since 1993, the overall firearm suicide rate declined 23.2%, but the non-firearms rate climbed 16.3%. This increase included all age groups except children. If these trends continue, non-firearms rates may comprise over 50% of all suicides when the CDC releases their 2008 mortality data (see graph below).
While any child’s death is an important concern, these CDC data indicate that when it comes to firearms-related violence, children have become much safer over time.
2001-2 CDC gun ownership data: more guns, less homicide
Though firearms homicide and suicide rates have declined since 1993, one question may remain: Are reduced firearms rates due to reduced firearms inventory?
The CDC performed gun ownership surveys in 2001 and 2002, estimating the percent of gun ownership (PGO) by state. When PGO was collated with CDC homicide data, certain trends appear: As gun ownership increases, homicide rates decrease.
Both annual datasets were divided into quintiles, with quintile 1 containing states with the lowest PGO, and quintile 5 containing states with the highest PGO. The graph below shows the trends for each year by quintile. Spearman’s values were -0.60 in 2001 and -0.50 in 2002, both moderate negative correlations (more guns, lower homicide rates).
After isolating firearms homicide rates, these trends improve slightly: Spearman’s values were -0.60 for 2001 and -0.70 for 2002.
Regarding firearms homicide rates, Blacks benefited the most from living in high-PGO states. Spearman’s values were -0.90 in 2001 and 1.00 in 2002, strong and perfect negative correlations, respectively (more guns, lower homicide rates).
Comparing quintiles 1 and 5, blacks living in the highest PGO states experienced about 50% the total homicide and 45% the firearms homicide rates of blacks living in states with the lowest gun ownership.
Data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives indicate that between 1993 and 2007, about 79 million firearms were sold in the U.S. About 35 million of these were handguns. During the same time, CDC data show the national firearms homicide rate declined 40.4%, and the firearms suicide rate declined 23.2%.
The CDC persists in hiding their anti-rights agenda within their “gun safety” research, but they haven’t bothered to learn from their own data.
(Homicide and child mortality data compiled from CDC’s WISQARS Fatal Injury Data into Excel workbooks; available to qualified researchers.)
As with the Global Warming data, the facts are not as important as the agenda.
So we’ll jsut sell our conclusions with the disputing data anyway.
No surprise here.
The Center for DISEASE
The Center for DISEASE control needs to focus on DISEASES, not guns. Once you understand this, nothing more needs to be said about this bunch of Propaganda. Let’s start cutting some spending with the jobs of the jackasses doing this stuff at the CDC.
Also, CDC has a long track record of diverting Federal funding from research on actual diseases to- you guessed it- the need for “gun control”. This was one of the reasons for the 1996 cutoff; not only was CDC peddling “junk science”, they were misappropriating taxpayers’ money to pay for it.
It’s interesting to note that the World Health Organization admits to having “difficulties” working with CDC on contagious diseases, because so much of their research time, budget, etc., is devoted to their anti-gun campaign. This doesn’t seem too important, unless you realize that this adversely impacts WHO’s ability to deal with outbreaks of seriously contagious and highly dangerous diseases such as dengue fever, etc., in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. (And let’s not even talk about an Ebola outbreak.) In fact, WHO’s major collaborator in such situations today isn’t CDC- It’s the U.S. Army’s Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, MD.
(NB- the present Administration regards USAMRIID as the devil incarnate, a group of mad scientists who are out to create biological weapons, while considering CDC the “guardian angels” of medicine. Proving that they don’t even bother to check out what their budget is buying.)
CDC’s staff seem to have a monomania on this subject. Maybe they should be taken off the Federal payroll altogether. I’m sure they could all find work with the Brady Campaign. As for their budget, I’m sure USAMRIID could make much better use of it.
Who knows, they might even come up with a cure for the common cold.
Other than staying in bed for a week, keeping warm, and drinking hot liquids, that is. As my family doctor used to say, “With all the medicines at my disposal, I can cure you of a cold in seven days. If you don’t do anything about it, it’ll wear off in about a week.”
cheers
eon
Seems to me there should be jail time associated with misappropriation of government funds and their fraudulent use.
In the hot-house culture of the regulatory and other such agencies, this isn’t considered fraud. it’s just proof that those spending the money are more
“enlightened” and “on a higher moral plane” than those appropriating it (Congress), or those footing the bill (everybody else). If you object, you’re just another kill-crazy, gun-happy, trigger-pumping redneck. (You probably hate puppies and kittens, too.)
The CDC-nauts will be held responsible for their shenanigans about the time Stevie Chu is called on the carpet to explain why he transformed Lawrence Livermore from a nuclear research lab into a paper mill producing endless “peer-reviewed” fluff about AGW and the need for cap and tax. Like CDC, he, too, is “on a higher moral plane”, you know.
Of course, long before then, Hell will have already frozen over.
cheers
eon
If the CDC will lie to us on this subject how can we trust them for useful information on disease? I think it is time for the CDC to be under civilian governance. I submit that the CDC should report to an elected board of governors. If not that then fire everyone from first level manager up to the top.
The CDC stopped being trustworthy on ANY subject at least a couple of decades ago.
Along with their gun control agenda, they have a pro-homosexual agenda, a promiscuity agenda (oh, excuse me, a “sexual education” agenda), an ant-circumcision agenda, and so on.
It’s really very difficult to sort out the science from the socialism at the CDC.
There’s nothing these commies won’t do to promote their agenda.
This is warfare. Disseminating false information for the purpose of advancing their conspiracy. It’s basic Democrat/Socialist media tradition.
Conservatives need to implement counter-intelligence to combat these commies.
And it won’t make any difference how racist, offensive, and criminal they call it, because they will use those terms anyway.
Cybergeezer:
The problem with your theory regarding a counter-intel strategy when dealing with these “agents”, is that historically and traditionally, the most effective counter-intel method to deal with low level bomb throwers and agents provocateur was to simply make them disappear. This was very effective in stopping communist insurgencies in Chile, Argentina, Mexico, South Korea, Malaysia, etc.
Are you seriously proposing we do the same in the US? Especially since there is so much lower hanging fruit in the form or congress-weasels, who are in much greater need of such attention for the good of our republic? If we had responsible adults voting on budgets instead of emotional children CDC wouldn’t have funds to play in this particular filthy little tub.
Respectfully, Armageddon Rex
First of all, A.R., I didn’t see your reply until this afternoon. And, thanks.
Secondly; Any attempt to “make them disappear” would be futile (and criminal). Since, OUR Constitution permits, and encourages, dissenting opinions. BUT, does NOT foster parasitic behavior.
This is healthy discourse. All too rare in conversation today.
The quality of elaboration in today’s comments is patently juvenile.
You are an agent of “counter-intel” when you engage in the colloquy of these critical essays.
Welcome aboard, sir.
The CDC has taken a page from the Nazi and Communist playbook. Falsify science, and use it to promote the regime agenda.
The Blame Stream Media will try to blame this on conservatives. You watch. They always do.
In light of the massacres that have been a scourge on our nation, and along our southern border, the CDC seems to be ignoring the dominant mathematical variables. If true, the researchers, and their bosses, are incompetent. A scientific study of homicides involving youths who live in a home without a permanently employed father, or who live in a home in which insanity is present, or who death was related to drug use, is in order.
IF you ignore key influences, you get very expensive garage for results. I prefer not to pay for garbage.
Perhaps I am a dolt, but why does the CDC have anything to do with gun control? Center for Disease Control, right? Has recent science linked any particular disease to guns? Have I been sleeping again?
1) “why does the CDC have anything to do with gun control?”
Because the government, in order to propagate itself, must ensure the People are helpless victims.
2) “Has recent science linked any particular disease to guns?”
If you can call it science. There are many published papers in Public Health and medical journals labeling guns as a disease vector. These articles, once examined, are easily classified as junk science, but they represent part of the agenda explained in point 1.
The CDC has been at this since Bush the First. Didn’t you know gun owners are a deadly, contagious disease that threatens the survival of our species?
“Didn’t you know gun owners are a deadly, contagious disease that threatens the survival of our species?”
They probably couldn’t have come up with a better tag line for themselves than that. That is exactly how the upper echelon at the CDC feels on the matter.
The CDC – Helping to rid the world of deadly, contagious gun owners that threaten the survival of our species.
In order for them to implement the egalitarian utopia where everyone lives a thousand years, they must first get rid of the unintelligent gun owners who impede forced evolutionary progress.
The CDC needs to move their offices to Juarez and work their gun control magic on them first. But they already have gun control and it doesn’t work. Or move the CDC branch office to California and work on educating the 46,000 Supreme Court ruled early release convicts of the evils of firearms. California already has strong gun control to keep the honest, law abiding citizens from having a concealed firearm so maybe by being the Center for Disease Control they can teach the diseased on how to keep the safety on and not shoot the defenseless.
The CDC should haul ass over to the DOJ/ATF and scold them for selling guns to gangsters in Mexico. Congressional hearings entitled, “Obstruction of Justice: Does the Justice Department Have to Respond to a Lawfully Issued and Valid Congressional Subpoena?” on the “gunwalker” scandal is set for Monday, June 13th.
Hiring and promotion in management levels of government demands the presence of necessary support for whatever agenda that may proceed therein whether by sworn oath or neurotic whim. With a mere workhorse skeleton of those qualified to carry out the paper shuffle and necessary dispensing of any surplus funds for a continued budgetary waste in the next fiscal period, misapplication of said surplus is readily diverted to data cooking and presentation supporting unauthorized personal neurotic agenda under guise of legitimate government oversight and token media attention.
All federal agencies in bloated Humpty Dumpty government void of proper citizen oversight eventually bulge with abusive operatives whether for financial obfuscation, agenda propagation or both.
Incentive vanishes despite legislated protection for oath sworn field employee whistle blowers facing discouraging follow up with departmental process delay deterrence providing management protection melded with court delay defense after a scapegoat is selected and all peripheral political damage has been minimized in the trust of parasitic lawyers. Conspiracy anyone?
That about sums it up.
Those guys in that show the walking dead were morons to go the CDC they were just going to take their guns. No wonder there was no cure for zombies they would have never thought to just shoot em in the head.
Any one get the reference?
I love zombie shows.
When are we going to get that with government’s fingers in everything, it is going to have an agenda about what it wants to accomplish?
Is it not true that when citizens own guns by right as a means of self-defense, crime is lower than when they are not allowed to own guns? If this is so, then is not the CDC in reality advocating for violence rather than against it?
“Terror must be maintained.”
Spock-2 (Leonard Nimoy) “Mirror, Mirror”, Star Trek; The Original Series, episode 39, 1967.
An armed populace cannot be readily terrorized into obedience. By the same token, an armed populace cannot generally be convinced they must cede “extraordinary powers” to government to protect them from criminals.
As such, a disarmed populace which lives in fear of crime is a desirable thing- if you happen to be the government. Doubly so if your reason for being in government in the first place is to make everyone else obey you, to feed your own dreams of power, or just to “get back” at anyone who ever slighted you, whether in reality or in your own imagination.
As a (retired) government employee, I’ve seen a lot of that sort on the payroll. Most of them have law degrees.
Seen in this light, CDC’s behavior makes perfect sense. They are on a mission to “make the world perfect”- by their own lights.
And “enlightened ones” on such a crusade need not submit their actions to the review of lesser breeds. Who will of course oppose them because, being lesser breeds, they are evil, stupid, and vicious, neither knowing or caring what is good for them.
Banning guns and banning meat seem unconnected, but in the mental universe of the “enlightened”, they are all part of making the world a better place.
And if you don’t like it, then ipso facto, you are too stupid to be listened to.
cheers
eon
I recommend we all keep our guns and even buy one for a friend or family member so we’re prepared for the day we’ll have to take up arms against a Leftist government that seems determined to enslave us and make us subjects instead of citizens.
I’ve never hated our government until the Obama administration.
http://www.webcitation.org/5glaWmdym
CDC corruption? what a conspiracy…
Just another instance of what my dad always said. “Figures don’t lie but liars can figure”
I think my reading of words and their meanings is big-time weird. Correct me if I’ve got it wrong. Isn’t the USA the exceptional in the world in its foundation, I repeat foundation, witnessed by THE legal document called the Constitution with its Bill of RIGHTS upon which ALL Law of the USA stands?
Doesn’t that document spell out, in simple words, RIGHTS of citizens of that USA. Rights that may not be abrogated by representatives of the people owning those rights. They may be changed, amended, if necessary, IF and ONLY IF the changes are agreed upon / accepted by the citizens willing to cede their Rights.
That Constitution spells out in simple words the procedure for any amendment, ANY change or limit to those RIGHTS, ANY law enacted that limits the RIGHTS of the citizens, unless through prescribed procedures is by definition unlawful. ANY law that abrogates or limits RIGHTS with whatever benevolent intent without complying with lawful procedure is by definition unlawful. I find it especially odd that, so many “representatives” of the citizens of the USA, as lawyers, sre remiss in their observation of PROCEDURE, if I understand correctly, THE BASE /The Bedrock of US Law. The USA is known in addition to The Land of the Free, as “A Country of Law” What exactly does that mean?
The Second Amendment of the BILL of RIGHTs states in clear language that :… the RIGHT of the People to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.(my emphasis).
WHEN was Law abrogating the 2nd Amendment enacted. I remember no such amendment in my lifetime. Only laws limiting, UNLAWFULLY, the Right of the citizens to keep and bear arms.