Juvenile murders: Guns least of it
Iain Murray http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/03/27/fp9s1-csm.shtml
WASHINGTON
The murder of six-year-old Kayla Rolland, the Michigan first-grader shot by a classmate last
month, sparked rightful outrage about firearms and the killing of American children.
But in the rush to reduce America's high juvenile homicide rates into a gun-control debate,
we're missing the chilling bigger picture of the real and deadly risks our children face, and
what it says about our society.
Kayla's murder prompted President Clinton to call for trigger locks on all handguns. And the
American Association of Pediatricians (AAP) urged doctors to discuss guns with all young
children they help.
Both calls for action relied on statistics from a recent government study, "Kids and Guns."
But that same report, by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, contains
chilling information that our obsession with guns can obscure. In other Western countries,
the report tells us, the homicide rate for children age 4 and under is just less than 1 per
100,000.
But it's quadruple that in the US, at 4.1 per 100,000.
And for every American child 4 or younger, more
than eight others die violently by other means - blunt
objects, strangulation, or, most commonly, hands,
fists, or feet.
Even in the 5 to 14 age range, the American nongun
murder rate is still more than twice as high as the
international comparison group - although the rate of
murders by firearms does increase considerably as
children get older.
While the rate of child gun homicide in the US is
much higher than elsewhere - as everyone
acknowledges - so is the rate of nongun murder.
Even if all the gun homicides were taken out of the
equation, America would still have an
infant-homicide rate more than 3.5 times as high as
the other Western countries.
This is a staggering revelation. The concern over gun
murders - which is, of course, completely legitimate -
is blinding us to another significant social problem.
In 1997, 738 children under age 13 were murdered in
the US - just 133 by guns, according to the FBI.
America is witnessing something barbaric happening
to its young children. These rates of child homicide
would be incredible were they not presented in
official government figures.
Brianna Blackmond, a 23-month-old Washington,
D.C., girl who died in January from a blow to the
head shortly after being returned to her mother from
a foster home, is more typical of the young children
killed in this country. But how much press attention
did that death receive outside Washington, compared
with Kayla Rolland's tragic but unusual death?
It is also important to note
that the main thrust of the
"Kids and Guns" study is
that the rise and subsequent
fall in the murder rate among
older juveniles in the 1990s
was driven by firearm
murders and the consequent
gun-control measures. But
this does not apply to murders of children aged 13 or
younger. The murder rate in that group was 1.8 per
100,000 in 1976 and 1.7 in 1997 (never having risen
above 2.1 in the intervening 20 years). Children
under 13 are being killed just about as often now as they were during the height of the
crack-fueled murder boom of the early 1990s. If anything has been done to combat the
problem, it hasn't worked.
But on the other hand, child murder is not a dispersed problem - it is tightly clustered
geographically. Eighty-five percent of US counties reported no juvenile homicides in 1997,
and only 7 percent experienced two or more. In great swaths of the country, child murder is
virtually unknown. The problem is confined mainly to the big cities of the East and West
coasts, and to the Southwest.
Despite the attention paid to outbreaks of violence in peaceful suburbs and schools, the
overwhelming majority of child murders happens elsewhere. This fact alone would imply that
across-the-board federal solutions affecting the entire country may be misplaced. The best
use of government resources must surely be to concentrate where the problem is greatest.
And for pediatricians nationwide to talk to all young children about guns, as the AAP
proposes, is well-intentioned, but will achieve little.
Certainly, gun murder of youths 13 to 19 is a significant problem, but the characteristics of
murder in this category are clearly quite different than in the younger cohort.
By letting ourselves believe that guns are the problem for pre-adolescents, we are avoiding the
unpalatable truth that something is very wrong in American society. Yet we focus on
exceptional cases, and ignore the unsettling nature of the daily reality. There's a lesson here.
We may be able to reduce child-murder rates to the levels of other countries if we concentrate
on what causes those murders - and guns aren't the biggest factor.
There may even be a domino effect; children raised in an environment where their lives have
little value may well regard the lives of others in the same light when they are seduced by the
power of the gun. But breaking that circle, making childhood safer and saving the lives of the
youngest children may help save older children and youths in the years to come.
Perhaps the safety locks we most need are the ones that other civilized countries place in their
citizens' consciences.
Kayla Rolland was, thankfully, the exception rather than the rule. It is the Brianna
Blackmonds who really deserve the attention of the nation's doctors and the president.
Iain Murray is senior research analyst at the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a
Washington-based nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to improving public
understanding of scientific, social, and quantitative research.
Iain Murray http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/03/27/fp9s1-csm.shtml
WASHINGTON
The murder of six-year-old Kayla Rolland, the Michigan first-grader shot by a classmate last
month, sparked rightful outrage about firearms and the killing of American children.
But in the rush to reduce America's high juvenile homicide rates into a gun-control debate,
we're missing the chilling bigger picture of the real and deadly risks our children face, and
what it says about our society.
Kayla's murder prompted President Clinton to call for trigger locks on all handguns. And the
American Association of Pediatricians (AAP) urged doctors to discuss guns with all young
children they help.
Both calls for action relied on statistics from a recent government study, "Kids and Guns."
But that same report, by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, contains
chilling information that our obsession with guns can obscure. In other Western countries,
the report tells us, the homicide rate for children age 4 and under is just less than 1 per
100,000.
But it's quadruple that in the US, at 4.1 per 100,000.
And for every American child 4 or younger, more
than eight others die violently by other means - blunt
objects, strangulation, or, most commonly, hands,
fists, or feet.
Even in the 5 to 14 age range, the American nongun
murder rate is still more than twice as high as the
international comparison group - although the rate of
murders by firearms does increase considerably as
children get older.
While the rate of child gun homicide in the US is
much higher than elsewhere - as everyone
acknowledges - so is the rate of nongun murder.
Even if all the gun homicides were taken out of the
equation, America would still have an
infant-homicide rate more than 3.5 times as high as
the other Western countries.
This is a staggering revelation. The concern over gun
murders - which is, of course, completely legitimate -
is blinding us to another significant social problem.
In 1997, 738 children under age 13 were murdered in
the US - just 133 by guns, according to the FBI.
America is witnessing something barbaric happening
to its young children. These rates of child homicide
would be incredible were they not presented in
official government figures.
Brianna Blackmond, a 23-month-old Washington,
D.C., girl who died in January from a blow to the
head shortly after being returned to her mother from
a foster home, is more typical of the young children
killed in this country. But how much press attention
did that death receive outside Washington, compared
with Kayla Rolland's tragic but unusual death?
It is also important to note
that the main thrust of the
"Kids and Guns" study is
that the rise and subsequent
fall in the murder rate among
older juveniles in the 1990s
was driven by firearm
murders and the consequent
gun-control measures. But
this does not apply to murders of children aged 13 or
younger. The murder rate in that group was 1.8 per
100,000 in 1976 and 1.7 in 1997 (never having risen
above 2.1 in the intervening 20 years). Children
under 13 are being killed just about as often now as they were during the height of the
crack-fueled murder boom of the early 1990s. If anything has been done to combat the
problem, it hasn't worked.
But on the other hand, child murder is not a dispersed problem - it is tightly clustered
geographically. Eighty-five percent of US counties reported no juvenile homicides in 1997,
and only 7 percent experienced two or more. In great swaths of the country, child murder is
virtually unknown. The problem is confined mainly to the big cities of the East and West
coasts, and to the Southwest.
Despite the attention paid to outbreaks of violence in peaceful suburbs and schools, the
overwhelming majority of child murders happens elsewhere. This fact alone would imply that
across-the-board federal solutions affecting the entire country may be misplaced. The best
use of government resources must surely be to concentrate where the problem is greatest.
And for pediatricians nationwide to talk to all young children about guns, as the AAP
proposes, is well-intentioned, but will achieve little.
Certainly, gun murder of youths 13 to 19 is a significant problem, but the characteristics of
murder in this category are clearly quite different than in the younger cohort.
By letting ourselves believe that guns are the problem for pre-adolescents, we are avoiding the
unpalatable truth that something is very wrong in American society. Yet we focus on
exceptional cases, and ignore the unsettling nature of the daily reality. There's a lesson here.
We may be able to reduce child-murder rates to the levels of other countries if we concentrate
on what causes those murders - and guns aren't the biggest factor.
There may even be a domino effect; children raised in an environment where their lives have
little value may well regard the lives of others in the same light when they are seduced by the
power of the gun. But breaking that circle, making childhood safer and saving the lives of the
youngest children may help save older children and youths in the years to come.
Perhaps the safety locks we most need are the ones that other civilized countries place in their
citizens' consciences.
Kayla Rolland was, thankfully, the exception rather than the rule. It is the Brianna
Blackmonds who really deserve the attention of the nation's doctors and the president.
Iain Murray is senior research analyst at the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a
Washington-based nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to improving public
understanding of scientific, social, and quantitative research.