So the Cult Coalition to Stop Gun Rights Violence is all freaky about this NBC news report:

About 500 American children and teenagers die in hospitals every year after sustaining gunshot wounds — a rate that climbed by nearly 60 percent in a decade, according to the first-ever accounting of such fatalities, released Sunday

via Terrible tally: 500 children dead from gunshots every year, 7,500 hurt, analysis finds – NBC News.com.

Major impact sought: picture of a cute boy whose life was cut short and the repeated use of the word children to reinforce the message. But if you are one of the few that bother to read through, you will find something interesting in paragraph 7:

Madenci, and his colleague, Dr. Christopher Weldon, a surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital, tallied the new statistics by culling a national database of 36 million pediatric hospitalizations from 1997 to 2009, the most recent year for which figures are available.
During that period, hospitalizations of kids and teens aged 20 and younger from gunshot wounds jumped from 4,270 to 7,730. Firearm deaths of children logged by hospitals rose from 317 in 1997 to 503 in 2009, records showed.

Now lets takes those numbers provided by the article. For the sake of the argument we are going to say that  in those 12 years, each year there were 503 deaths by firearms. That will give us a total of 6,036 deaths. And in those 12 years, each one had 7,730 hospitalizations which would bring us to a total of 92,760. Both together give us the exaggerated total of 98,760 deaths & hospitalizations.

Now, they were kind enough to provide us with the number of 36 million pediatric hospitalizations for that time frame which means that 98,760 deaths & hospitalizations by firearms represents 0.27% of the total of hospitalizations and my numbers are way over the top.

What really makes me “irritable” is that the same crowd that cry to make our kids safe from the dangers of firearms is the same mob that throws a big tantrum and refuses gun safety programs directed to kids like Eddie Eagle to be taught in schools.

I noticed that CDC considers a child to be between the ages of 1 and 14 as per their reports. We also know that the 15-19 section of victims of firearms are closely related to gang activity and the drug trade thus the higher incidence of wounds and deaths in that age bracket. But they have no problems considering them all children if the political shoe fits and they can make a sizzle.

As with any product, if you make an attractive label and a nice slogan, you will sell. It is up to us to denounce the snake oil vendors and their deceptive practices.