Guns don鈥檛 kill, people kill, goes the popular old trope against rational gun-safety laws. Setting aside that it鈥檚 not strictly true (what about accidental discharges of found firearms, which kill hundreds of kids a year?), the trope is always colliding with inconvenient data.
If 鈥済uns don鈥檛 kill, people kill,鈥 how to explain the fact that Americans are statistically far more likely to be killed by guns in states such as Missouri, which has almost no restrictions on adult gun possession, than in states that have substantive restrictions? Are Missourians just worse people than, say, Illinoisans or New Yorkers? We don鈥檛 think so; the gun lobby apparently does.
The latest inconvenient data comes courtesy of the American Medical Association. In a major new study of , the AMA charts the clear correlation between states鈥 gun-safety policies and the rates by which children are killed by guns.
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The short version: Missouri remains a dangerous place to be a kid.
Start with the unacceptable, horrendous, nauseating fact that guns are the today for American children. That鈥檚 not the case in any other advanced country. Just us. Firearms take roughly young American lives a day, every day. Is it a coincidence that the country with the loosest gun laws, and more guns per capita than anyone else, also buries child victims of firearms at a higher rate than any other country? Or (again) are Americans just worse people?
The divided U.S. states into three categories: states with 鈥渟trict鈥 gun laws (Illinois, New York, New Jersey and California among them); those with 鈥減ermissive鈥 gun laws (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia); and those with the 鈥渕ost permissive鈥 laws (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and, of course, Missouri).
Missouri actually has few peers in terms of its permissiveness. The state requires no criminal background checks to buy guns, no permit requirement to carry them, no red-flag laws to ensure they don鈥檛 fall into the hands of mentally unstable people.
Speaking of mental instability, Missouri鈥檚 truly bonkers 鈥溾 mandated that local law enforcement ignore any federal gun laws that didn鈥檛 adhere to Missouri鈥檚 level of lunacy, until a federal court predictably struck it down.
And how has this official fetishization of firearms served Missouri鈥檚 children?
According to the AMA report, our state has among the half-dozen worst pediatric firearms death rates nationally since the Supreme Court allowed states to start loosening their gun laws in 2010. Since then, Missouri has averaged 4.2 deaths per 100,000 kids annually. In the 10 years before Missouri started loosening its laws, that rate was under 3.
Our company in this cavalcade of shame is notable: The only states with worse child death rates are Louisiana (5.7 per 100,000 kids), Alaska (5.4) and Mississippi (5.1); we are tied with Montana and Wyoming.
These are the only six states with annual firearms death rates above 4 per 100,000 鈥 and all six are crowded in the AMA鈥檚 鈥渕ost permissive鈥 category in terms of gun laws. Missouri children can only envy the safety of kids in states with 鈥渟trict鈥 gun laws, such as California (1.4 deaths per 100,000), New York and New Jersey (0.9 each) and Massachusetts (0.6).
Supporters of Missouri鈥檚 Wild West approach to guns love to point out that an outsized percentage of the state鈥檚 gun deaths happen in 51黑料 and Kansas City. That tiresome argument ignores the facts that, A. both those urban centers have had their hands tied in terms of confronting gun violence thanks to Missouri鈥檚 permissive state laws; and B. larger urban centers in Illinois, New York, California and the rest 鈥 which 补谤别苍鈥檛 hobbled by retrograde state legislatures 鈥 have managed to keep their child gun deaths at lower rates despite the inherent problems urban centers face.
In light of all this, voters should consider a revised version of the old trope as they next choose their elected representatives: Gun don鈥檛 kill children 鈥 gun-coddling politicians do.
