Last week, NRA-ILA explained how a recent public service announcement campaign from the federally-funded Ad Council, and the gun control lobby more broadly, manipulates statistics to create misleading talking points about “children” and firearms. After press time, the (new and improved?) Washington Post published an item on their Fact Checker section by Glenn Kessler titled, “Are guns the biggest killer of ‘children and teens’?” In his mostly astute analysis, Kessler covered much of the same ground NRA-ILA has been addressing for years.
The specific Ad Council talking point at issue is: “Gun injuries are the #1 Killer of Children and Teens in America.” The statement is sourced to the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, bankrolled by billionaire gun control advocate Michael Bloomberg.
For decades, gun control advocates and their allies in “public health” have pushed versions of this factoid about “children” and firearms.
As we pointed out last week, this is how the ploy works: Step one, acquire statistics on firearm-related deaths among children ages 0-14. Step two, combine that relatively low number with the far greater number of firearm-related deaths involving juveniles and young adults ages 15-17, 15-19, or even ages 15-24. Step three, present the resulting data as the shocking number of “children” (ages 0-17, 0-19 or 0-24) who are subjected to “gun violence” each day/week/month/year. Step four, use the disingenuous statistic to advocate for pre-determined gun control policies (often unenforceable “safe storage” laws) by claiming “gun violence is the leading cause of death of children.”
Consider the data on those who may be properly defined as children – ages 0-14. For this cohort, firearm-related injuries are not the leading causes of death and are not higher than motor vehicle deaths.
This does shift when examining the cohorts ages 15-17, 15-19, or 15-24. Roughly 70-percent of the firearm-related deaths that occur in the 0-17 age group happened among the juveniles ages 15-17 in 2023. This disparity shouldn’t be surprising. The 15-17 cohort is far more often engaged in the type of street crime that can give rise to firearm-related violence and that many jurisdictions have decided to address in a more lenient manner in recent years.
Understanding this manipulation, Kessler wrote,
when older teens (15 to 17, as defined by Johns Hopkins) are removed from the calculations using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS), the numbers change dramatically, with almost 50 percent more deaths from vehicle crashes than firearms. Vehicle crashes exceed firearms deaths also for ages 1 to 15.
As for children, ages 1 to 9 as defined by Johns Hopkins, firearms deaths are so much lower that they don’t even make second place.
Kessler also pointed out how deaths involving firearms vary among different groups. The reporter pointed out, “The racial disparity in firearm deaths — and how it keeps growing — is striking, when you drill down on the CDC data,” and, “The racial disparity is even greater among teens.” The author noted, “In fact, much of the rise in firearm deaths in the 1-to-17 age range since 2018 can be attributed to the rise in deaths among Black youths, not White youths.”
Bringing the discussion back to the Ad Council’s campaign at the conclusion of his article, Kessler suggests how the campaign’s misdirection actually stands in the way of effective responses:
Firearms are the leading cause of deaths among teens, especially older teens. That’s very clear, especially among Black teens. A more precise statement — highlighting the risk faced by teens — might help focus attention on who the horrible toll of gun violence harms most.
Inaccurate Ad Council messaging aside, given that the nature of violence perpetrated with firearms is far different and more acute than gun control advocates often portray, reality might recommend policies tailored to address individuals who commit violence with firearms rather than sweeping restrictions that impact perpetrators and the law-abiding alike. With increases in older teen homicide coinciding with an era of soft-on-crime policies, empowering law enforcement and the broader criminal justice system to adequately address those who misuse firearms would be a good place to start. While some on the left may deplore the idea of older teens and young adults being arrested and held accountable by the criminal justice system, it might be a safer option for them than allowing retaliatory cycles of violence on the streets to go unaddressed.
Viewed most charitably, the Ad Council campaign merely obscures the reality of violence perpetrated with firearms and diverts resources that might have been used to address the issue to unproductive ends.
However, given that NRA-ILA, the Washington Post, and others have repeatedly addressed the misleading “children” and firearms factoid, a reasonable person could conclude that all this obfuscation is the point. That person might even get the impression that these “public service announcements” are nothing more than political propaganda aimed at instilling an irrational fear of firearms with the uninformed public. After all, the Ad Council gun campaign’s “stakeholder partners” include firearm prohibition advocates Brady (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.), Michael Bloomberg-fund Everytown for Gun Safety, Giffords, and the Joyce Foundation (which funds the handgun prohibition organization Violence Policy Center).
Taxpaying gun owners should know that the federal government routinely funds the Ad Council to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for various public service campaigns. Records from USASpending.gov show that in fiscal years 2022, 2023, and 2024, the federal government awarded the organization $16.4 million, $13.6 million, and $14.3 million, respectively. While these awards were not related to firearm propaganda specifically, they provide lifelines to an organization whose messaging on firearms is not only misleading but potentially counterproductive to sound public policy.
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