In 1997, the National Center for Health Statistics reported a total of 21 accidental handgun deaths for children through age 14 -- 21 deaths for the entire country.

Adding the 15-19 year olds only gives another 34 handgun accidental deaths in the entire USA -- 55 handgun accidental deaths of persons 19 and younger total.

Don’t believe me? Check http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/datawh/statab/unpubd/mortabs/gmwki.htm. From that page download GMWK_1997 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/gmwki_97.pdf), open the acrobat file and go to Acrobat page number 1667 (the listed page number in the upper right is 1558). Look under ICD 922.0 for handgun accidental deaths (listed as 9220).

What about the supposed 12 or 13 or … children a day that are killed by gunfire in the United States? Those aren't accidental handgun death numbers, because the 55 total accidental deaths translates to 0.15 per day.

The "12 or 13" numbers include accidents with long guns (e.g. hunting), suicides, murders (a very large number of gang members killing other gang members), "children" who are 18 and 19 years old and both police and civilians shooting "children" who are engaged in rape, armed robbery, and attempted murder. A very large part of those deaths are caused by adults (75% in the cases where the perpetrator is known). If you want proof about the 75% figure, check http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/2000_5_2/child_01.html where you will see a U. S. Justice Department report showing a graphic breakdown of children killed by adults, by children, and by unknown. Keeping guns out of the hands of children will do nothing for the 75% killed by adults -- it may even increase that number.
For more information see:
Children Killed
Facts about Maryland's Child Homicide Victims
Discrimination against young adults

Think you can affect suicides with gun regulations? -- forget it! Where guns are denied, people hang themselves, poison themselves, use automobile exhaust, and use many other substitutes. Japan with essentially no guns has a far higher suicide rate (18.5 deaths per every 100,000 averaging rates for men and women) than the US (12 deaths per every 100,000). In fact, the U.S. has about an average suicide rate for the whole world despite its relatively high rate of gun ownership. Surely you will want to check that assertions so take a look at: http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/IASR/suicide-table1.htm where you will see a table of world suicide rates for men and women. At the bottom of that table you can find the world average for suicide. Japan's suicide rate has recently increased to 25.3 per 100,000 while the US rate declined to 11.5 according to the World Health data at: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/.

Even Canada with its strict gun control has a higher rate (13 deaths per 100,000) than the US. The idea that taking guns out circulation will force people to use less effective means to kill themselves and that some will be saved thereby is a myth. The evidence is that people wanting to die will find a way even when guns are not available.

Like handgun accidental deaths, child handgun suicide in the US is a problem that is larger in the popular conception than in reality. The National Center for Health Statistics reports 32 suicides by handguns for children 14 and younger in 1997 -- 32 for the whole country. Throw in the 15-19 year olds, and you get 179 more (that's ICD 955.0 for handgun suicides, if you want to check the figures -- see the Acrobat page 1729 or listed page number on upper right corner of 1620). These are still tragedies, but it’s hard to really believe that trigger locks are going to make much of a dent in those suicides, especially so long as drills are in the same house with the children. These 211 Americans 19 and younger who use a handgun for suicide may be compared to 282 persons age 19 and younger Canadians who killed themselves in 1997 using all methods. Remember, Canada has a population about one-eight that of the United States.
For more information about suicides see:
Maryland Suicide Facts

The Violence Policy Center (VPC) has recently issued a report indicating Maryland is the top state for children age 17 and younger being killed with a handgun. The VPC claims Maryland's murder rate for this group is 2.86 per year per 100,000 juveniles which translates to 182 juveniles murdered over the 5 year period examined (see their press release at http://www.vpc.org/press/0111fire.htm and follow links to their data). They also claim that 36% of the killers in Maryland are children as opposed to 25% nationally. We note that leaves 64% killed by adults. It is worth noting also this VPC reported juvenile murder rate is approximately one-third that of the adult murder rate in Maryland. While it is tragic to loose a child, it isn't something to celebrate when an adult is killed either. So, what justifies this obsession with child deaths when adult deaths are so much more frequent? And what justifies the focus on children as murderer when adults kill twice the number of children in Maryland and three times the number nationally?

So, what is the VPC really talking about? They are talking about young gangsters using handguns to kill other young gangsters and adults killing children. There is no evidence that government policy has prevented a gangster from getting a gun if the gangster wants one -- even the gangsters who are children. Triggerlocks, Brady Bill, . . . -- none of these efforts have produced measurable impact on criminal access to guns.

If you don't believe the Brady Bill is so ineffective, see "Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act," JAMA 284#5, August 2, 2000. This Journal of the American Medical Association article by Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook (two anti-gun researchers) states that the Brady Bill has had no measurable effect on murder or suicide. Unfortunately, JAMA has established charges for viewing documents on their web site and there is now a charge for the Ludwig and Cook paper. Johns Hopkins did recently post the paper at http://www.jhu.edu/ips/mpp/docs/ludwigcook.pdf where viewing was free, but they shortly afterwards removed it (perhaps the truth was too inconvenient for them) [so the paper is posted here].

If the Ludwig and Cook study is not enough to convince you, another study showing the futility of gun-control laws comes from a national survey of prisoners by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. The survey found that more convicted criminals used guns in the commission of their crimes after the passage of tough gun-control laws in the 1990s than before.

In 1991, 16 percent of state prisoners used guns while committing the crimes that landed them in prison. In 1997 the number was 18 percent. The comparable numbers for federal prisoners were 12 percent in 1991 and 15 percent in 1997 (see "Criminals Getting Guns From Friends," CHRISTOPHER NEWTON, Associated Press, November 4, 2001).

In 2000 Maryland is still number one in Robbery rate and it looks like Maryland will "win" that ranking again in 2001. Also, Maryland looks likely to move to #2 in murder rate in 2001 from #4 in 2000. All of this crime is predictable given the foolish policies of Maryland government to make it safe for criminals to work.