Is the NRA part of the problem in counting school shootings?

[Lifelong Protester]

Here is a link to a Chicago Sun-Times article by Carol Marin, stating that the the NRA is more than likely getting in the way of the CDC reporting how many children are shot each year.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/marin/2009/08/is_nra_part_of_the_problem_in.html

Part of the blog-post:
"Back in 1997, PBS' "Frontline" reported that when the respected Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta published a "mind-boggling report showing that the U.S. firearm-related homicide rate for children was 16 times higher than the combined rate for children in 25 other industrialized countries," the CDC was already firmly in the gunsights of the NRA.

And so the CDC's effort to exhaustively investigate gun-related injuries was met with intense NRA lobbying that, not surprisingly, fueled Congress' unwillingness to fully fund the CDC's continued research.


The NRA's fearsome clout goes a long way to explaining why only 17 states are part of the CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System. Begun in 2002, it ran out of funding by the time Illinois applied in 2004. Private money from the Joyce and MacArthur foundations came to Illinois' rescue as it tried to examine gun violence. Still that money covers only three counties.

"Information is the gun lobby's enemy," said Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center, based in Washington.

So for the most part, school shootings are underreported, especially if the victim is wounded and not killed.

Unfortunately, no surprise here, She further goes on to say that the NRA pretty much can act with impugnity at the Congress is mighty afraid of them.

And of course, the three comments left so far are from gun lovers, who opine that the kids were in gangs (those shot at last year) so I'm guessing by their comment that means those kids are just 'lost' and 'don't count' anyway.

[TheWraith]

1. The CDC defines "children" as anyone under the age of 25.

Their stats are meaningless except as political scare tactics.

[damntexdem]

7. The CDC has a deserved good reputation -- the NRA deserves a putrid one.

I'll stick with the CDC, over the perpetrators who help create the mess they want swept under the rug.

[villager]

2. The NRA's thought-bots will rush here to say it ain't so...

n/t

[X_Digger]

3. See other thread..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x244710

The NVDRS correlation is not available for 50 states, but the things that the editorial states as not being available actually are, from WISQARS for all 50 states.

"So much so that when it comes to suicides, the CDC does not break out its data with regard to the method used. Hanging? Drug overdose? Or gun?"

What NVDRS does is-

# link records on violent deaths that occurred in the same incident to help identify risk factors for multiple homicides or homicides-suicides;
# provide timely preliminary information on violent deaths (e.g., basic counts of murders and suicides) through faster data retrieval-currently, vital statistics data are not available until two years after a death;
# describe in detail the circumstances that may have contributed to a violent death; and
# better characterize perpetrators, including their relationships to victim(s).

So WISQARS will have 2 incidents of murder by gun and one gun suicide, but NVDRS would tell you that it was a family annihilator who killed his wife and kid, then turned his gun on himself.

http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html - both fatal and non-fatal injuries are covered

[Bill McBlueState]

4. Why would the NRA try to conceal school shootings?

They're always telling us there's no causal connection between weak gun restrictions and gun violence. If they really believe this, why would they care how many school shootings there are?

[Lifelong Protester]

5. Anything that can be construed to put a gun in a 'bad light'

the NRA is against. And if schoolchildren are being killed, that might be something the NRA feels would cause people to clamor for more gun control. So hence, the squeeze to underreport or to misconstrue the findings to make it look like 'guns don't kill people'.

I mainly posted this because again, a lobbying group is keeping a government agency from doing its appointed job.

[jody]

6. Please prove "lobbying group is keeping a government agency from doing its appointed job." n/t

[Lifelong Protester]

8. from the text in above link...

Back in 1997, PBS' "Frontline" reported that when the respected Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta published a "mind-boggling report showing that the U.S. firearm-related homicide rate for children was 16 times higher than the combined rate for children in 25 other industrialized countries," the CDC was already firmly in the gunsights of the NRA.

And so the CDC's effort to exhaustively investigate gun-related injuries was met with intense NRA lobbying that, not surprisingly, fueled Congress' unwillingness to fully fund the CDC's continued research.

Kathleen Monahan, the former project director for the Illinois Violent Death Reporting System, puts it this way: "While firearms injuries are one of the leading causes of hospitalization and death for Americans, the CDC was prevented for years from investigating injuries and deaths due to firearms. This was always attributed to the NRA's power in Congress. This is well known among gun violence prevention researchers."

The NRA, for its part, makes no bones about its attempts to inhibit or limit research on gun violence.
(end of quote) I don't do a good job of the <snip> function or whatever. Sorry.


Perhaps I am reading this wrong, but it seems to me that the NRA by its own admission is trying to keep the CDC from doing its research, and lobbying Congress to cut off funds for this research.

[jody]

9. Thanks however the article you cite does not prove that CDC changed the way agencies code and submit

basic data that ultimately ends up in CDC's database.

[cornermouse]

10. Interesting.

I think its rather curious that the code used most often is "Assault (homicide) by other or unspecified gun discharge". Did they not know what type of bullet/gun killed them?

Firearm deaths, 2006, age 10 - 14, 72.6% firearms / age 15 - 19, 85.9% firearms / age 20 - 24, 84.3% firearms / age 25 - 34, 79.7% firearms / age 35 - 44, 65.8% firearms
Those are not good statistics to try to support the NRA's usual stance.

I looked at the suicide by firearms and they are using unspecified firearm for most of them as well. You would think that in the case of suicide the "firearm" would have been somewhere in the vicinity of the body. Just a thought.

[jody]

11. Understand, seems like sloppy data collection to me. n/t

[cornermouse]

12. self delete.

[cornermouse]

13. Above self delete clarification.

not due to anger or anything like that.

[jody]

14. Understand, thanks for your comment earlier.

:hi:

[benEzra]

15. The article was mistaken and has been pulled by the author, who was fed bad information.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x245272

The CDC does, in fact, provide that information.

[Jackson1999]

16. The author got it wrong...

She admitted it and took the article down. I think she was just sold the usual bill of goods by the anti-gun folks.

Interestingly, she said that one of her sources was the CDC. Hmmmm....