The opening statistic is shocking, but apparently made up. These are opinion pieces and we don't fact check them. You can fact check it yourselves by going here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6637963/

Perhaps these pieces should be checked, given the number of naive lefties who hang onto every word because the writers are usually academics; and, to the naifs, academics can do no wrong.

Sam, there has been some change, not much but in the right direction and a direction that can be built on with time as small incremental steps, as background checks are expanded to eliminate nut jobs/the criminal element. It's not law abiding gun owners that are the problem, it's outlaws.

Moreover, police the world over kill as many citizens with guns as the criminal community. Take the guns off the law abiding gun owners and only outlaws will have guns.

Criminal gangs are involved in drive by shootings in Sydney, with the law abiding caught in the crossfire. Even though we here have the strictest gun laws in the world. bar Japan, where almost every household has a hand gun. No law has thus, far shut down the black market here or there! Laws need to be enforceable to work!

Guns are just as numerous in Swiss and Austrian communities, with only one mass shooting outcome? So, what do they do different? Background checks on allcomers and gun shows, seems to be were they and you differ?
Alan B.

Pros - the right to bear arms for the purposes of a militia blah blah blah

It was specifically inserted so that citizens have a right to overthrow a tyrannical government,
- which is exactly what the US has become.
The founders knew the system they built wouldn't last forever.
- Eisenhower spoke about the military industrial complex, look how much needless and senseless deaths the US has brought upon the rest of the world.

Cons - a lot of needless and senseless deaths of those very same US citizens.

The answer, maybe China will do better when the become global hegemon.
US already owes them a trillion dollars.

Don't like the idea of China ruling the world?
Then it's up to us to figure out something better than both these nations before it's too late.
- We're in overtime now, time is running short -

"It is shameful and unconscionable that this country has allowed gun violence to become the leading cause of death among children in the United States."

By the way, it's not our country, it's yours.
Our country is Australia, and we need to be free from all of this nonsense.

Repealing the 2nd amendment is like the weather - everyone talks about it but no one does anything about it.

They call for a repeal but nothing is done because they also know that 60-70% of USians oppose repeal. So its just virtue signalling.

Especially when we know that murder rates due to firearms are at historically low levels.
http://www.ammoland.com/2016/08/per-capita-firearms-vs-murder-rates-u-s-1950-2014/

The message that Sam Ben-Meir keeps parrotting, is that guns are the problem. Guns are the problem. Guns are the problem. Limit the ownership of guns, and everything will be comparatively humpty dory.

Wrong, Sam.

It is the easy availability of guns COMBINED WITH a Hollywood inspired culture that never ceases resenting the idea that violent revenge, gang behaviour, and the misuse of firearms is what Real Men engage in, COMBINED WITH generations of poorly socialised, often fatherless young men, who's primary socialisation means is a TV set or a movie screen, COMBINED WITH an ever growing number of people from dysfunctional ethnicities through immigration or birth rate differentials who have a low collective intelligence, and THAT is the problem.

But being a card carrying member of the neo Marxist academia of today, old Sam is never going to mention that the entertainment culture is very influential in human behaviour. The print and on screen media today can start wars, denigrate politicians and support politicians. It can endorse products and champion causes, both noble and selfish. It can set fashions, promote ideas, sell products, propagate lies, incite rebellions, sponsor charities, stimulate debate, generte approval, endorse opinions, cause controversies, create heroes, and arouse emotions. It can do all of these things and Sam knows it. But Sam will never mention it because as an elitist he considers the entertainment media artists and their news media mates as part of his select group. And it is not in the interests of his select group to have their means of living examined or limited by government regulation

continued (I hate this 350 word rule)

Nor will Sam say anything about how most of the gun violence in the USA is committed by black African young men at a rate far out of proportion to their numbers. Attacking certain ethnic groups and their very high levels of criminal behaviour is a giant no no to Sam and his friends. He could mention that black African males are the ones most likely to abandon their children, but of course he did not. His democrat buddies need the "black vote" so they put on their ideological blinkers and look the other way. Like Lee Harvey Oswald, gun owners are just a convenient scapegoat

Well who fact checks the fact checkers?

It appears it is me on this occasion.

Graham claims the following with a seemingly high degree of certainty:

"The opening statistic is shocking, but apparently made up. These are opinion pieces and we don't fact check them. You can fact check it yourselves by going here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6637963/"

His above evidence is a 2018 article.

However a more current New England Journal of Medicine article looked at the latest figures and found:

"The previous analysis, which examined data through 2016, showed that firearm-related injuries were second only to motor vehicle crashes (both traffic-related and nontraffic-related) as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents, defined as persons 1 to 19 years of age.4

Since 2016, that gap has narrowed, and in 2020, firearm-related injuries became the leading cause of death in that age group (Figure 1).

From 2019 to 2020, the relative increase in the rate of firearm-related deaths of all types (suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined) among children and adolescents was 29.5% — more than twice as high as the relative increase in the general population.

The increase was seen across most demographic characteristics and types of firearm-related death (Fig. S1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org)."

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761

It seems the author of this OLO article was correct and Graham, on this occasion at least, is wrong to claim anything was made up.

I'm sure he will acknowledge this at the earliest convenience.

All those who oppose the US gun selling industry are Communists.

After all, its not Guns that kill people.

Bullets do.

The leading cause of death among young American children are moron parents & American media & greed !

Maverick,

Chris Rock had the solution to the bullet problem...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZrFVtmRXrw

Can anyone explain why the USA, having more firearms in civilian hands than any other country on Earth has a low homicide rate?
Surely with the most guns it should have the highest homicide rate.

Um mhaze

When the yankee Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

They didn't have the likes of Chris Rock's hue in mind http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZrFVtmRXrw

Or women.

The Second Amendment does not conferva right it recognises an existing right.