By: Robert Davis

Gun rights activists are pushing back against a study published by The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that suggests strict gun control laws are effective in preventing pediatric deaths caused by firearm misuse.

“If the results from this ‘study’ are true, then we should be moving our kids to the south side of Chicago or Baltimore,” Michael Hammond, legal counsel for Gun Owners of America (GOA), told Gunpowder Magazine. “But, in fact, one of the states with the strictest gun control laws, California, just had another mass shooting. So, you have to ask yourself how scientific this study really is.”

The Giffords Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave California an A rating because the state raised the minimum age to purchase and manufacture guns to 21 and broadened its domestic violence laws. Even though the state has the strictest gun laws in the nation, they didn’t stop a gunman from killing four and injuring 12 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Giffords also gave Illinois a B+ rating, even though 293 people in Chicago have been killed this year because of gun violence.

According to the APP study:

[Authors] found that states with stricter firearm legislation had the lowest rates of pediatric death from firearms. States that had laws which had been in effect for five years or more requiring universal background checks for firearm purchase had lower pediatric death rates than those states that did not have laws requiring background checks. The presence of these laws was associated with more than a 35% lower rate of pediatric firearm-related death, even after adjustment for socioeconomic factors and proportion of residents owning a gun.

“This study is meant to support any legislation that is anti-gun,” Hammond said. “It’s based on statistics from the Brady Campaign and Giffords Center, basically the central data from the gun control lobby.”

According to OpenSecrets.com, the Giffords Center PAC gave more than $250,000 to Democrats who support its gun control legislation, including red flag laws, universal background checks, and Child Access Prevention Laws.

AAP has fueled the push for strict gun control laws by publishing more than 60 studies that support anti-gun positions.

“These liberal organizations fund these studies that are absolutely ridiculous, publish them in 50,000 newspapers, and then call them scientific,” Hammond said. “However, if you take this study’s advice, you’ll end up moving your family into a shooting gallery.”

GOA sent the following letter to the its supporters urging them to contact their senators:

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a “study” using data from the virulently anti-gun Brady Campaign which claims that tougher gun control leads to fewer firearm deaths of children.

Their goal is to convince you to support gun control measures such as Universal Background Checks or Red Flag Gun Grabs — or else be publicly shamed as an enabler of children’s deaths.

The pediatrics’ lobby wants you to believe that children are safer in Baltimore and the south side of Chicago than in Cheyenne, Wyoming or Bismarck, North Dakota.

In reality, the surest way to endanger children is to create more and more “gun-free zones” for killers to flock to.

Take the state of Maryland, which has Universal Background Checks, so-called “assault weapons” bans, red flag Gun Confiscation Orders, and much more.

Because of all of its gun control, the Brady Campaign gives Maryland an A-. And yet its neighbor to the south, Virginia, has none of these restrictions. So the Brady Campaign has downgraded the state with a D grade.

To simply look at these grades, one might assume that Maryland is the safer state. But then one would be wrong.

Not only has Maryland’s additional gun control NOT made the state any safer, its murder rate is almost DOUBLE the rate of Virginia’s.

In fact, Baltimore leads all large cities with the highest murder rate per capita.
The “success” of gun control is based on nothing but circular reasoning.

The Brady Bunch assumes that gun control makes a state safer. Then states with more gun control get higher grades. Finally, researchers come along and use the state grades to “prove” that states with higher grades are safer — despite evidence to the contrary.

The AAP report “adjusted” government data to determine that 21,241 children died of “firearm-related injuries” during a recent five-year period.

Among the many flaws in their analysis is this: Over two-thirds of firearms-related deaths are from suicides. But roughly half of suicide deaths are from means other than firearms.

Hence, the inaccessibility of firearms in places like New York and San Francisco will simply shift suicide methods to jumping, overdoses, and wrist-slashing.

The study also ignored how many children were saved in the more than 500,000 to 3 million times a year that guns are used to prevent crime.

The Centers for Disease Control have already reported that guns are used millions of times each year in self-defense. In fact, compared to the negative uses of firearms, the CDC data demonstrates that guns are used 16-100 times more often to save life than to take life.

I implore you to carefully and rationally review the facts before voting on any gun control measures passed by Nancy Pelosi’s House majority.

Robert Davis is a general assignment reporter for Gunpowder Magazine. You can contact him with tips at RobertDavis0414 (at) gmail.com.