Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has been following the right-wing media playbook in downplaying the threat of gun violence in the wake of a rash of gun massacres. CNS also made sure to take thte next step in downplaying gun violence by irrelevantly comparing it to abortion -- though it took two tries for intern Lucy Collins to do it as demanded. First up was a June 6 article declaring:
Following the tragic homicide of 19 schoolchildren and two of their teachers in Uvalde, Texas, the mainstream media have pushed the claim that guns are now the “leading cause of death among children.” In reality, 2019 data show that 395 times more babies were killed by abortion than minors killed by firearms.
According to the CDC’s 2019 data on abortion, there were 629,898 abortions reported from 47 states and the District of Columbia -- excluding data from California, Maryland, and New Hampshire, which did not report their numbers. In the same parameters, firearm deaths for children aged zero to 17 numbered 1,596 deaths, making abortion deaths 395 times greater than gun deaths for children.
While only 42 states have so far reported their abortions for 2020, not including major abortion states like California, New York, and New Jersey, the deaths by abortion in 2020 were 264 times more than firearm deaths of children ages zero to 17, under the same parameters.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, made a similar claim during a press conference announcing his support of proposed gun control laws. Newsom said, “Guns are now the leading cause of death for kids in America.” The governor was likely citing from the CDC data, omitting abortion and including teenagers and some adults.
Collins then tried to parse the numbers to diminish gun violence even further (and portray abortion as so much worse):
Looking closer at the CDC’s data, it may be misleading to label firearms as the leading cause of death, even when excluding abortion.
For those under 10 years old, suffocation, causing 32% of deaths, is the leading cause of death with firearms being the fifth leading cause at 6.9%.
Non-firearm-related deaths are the leading cause of death in every below-teen age range. For ages one through three years old, drowning was the leading cause of death in 2020.
For ages four through 12, every individual age group reports motor-vehicle-related death as the leading cause, with firearms coming in second for ages seven, eight, 10, 11, and 12.
Excluding 18 and 19 year olds, 2020 CDC data show that firearms are the leading cause of death for the zero to 17 age group as a whole. Motor vehicle deaths come in second, with 50 fewer deaths.
When removing deaths caused by suicide, which account for 32% of firearm deaths, motor vehicles become the leading cause of death at 27% and firearms are second at 19%.
Combining what the WHO, CDC, and NIH define as “adolescence” ending at the typical onset of puberty and Cleveland Clinic’s age range of “child” as the ages between five to 12 years old, a more accurate CDC data analysis would say that in 2020 the leading cause of death for children (ages five to 12) is motor vehicles, causing 551 deaths.
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Even when using the liberal media’s misleading age parameters of zero to 19 years old, 2020 available data show there were 41 times more babies killed by abortion than by all causes of death combined for zero to 19 year olds.
But sometime before June 9, Collins' article was deleted without explanation; the URL currently shows a message stating "The requested page could not be found."
Meanwhile, Collins took another stab at pushing this narrative in a June 7 article that had drastically lower numbers:
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), abortion killed 204.5 times more American babies in 2019 than the number of Americans ages 1 to 19 years old killed that year by firearms.
In 2019, there were 629,898 abortion deaths in the 47 states and the District of Columbia that reported their abortions to the CDC. That same year, there were 3,080 firearms deaths of people 19 and under in those same 47 states and the District of Columbia. That equaled 204.5 abortion for each firearms death of a person 19 or under.
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Under these parameters, deaths by abortion were 140.2 times more than firearm deaths of minors and 46 times more than all deaths for the 1-19 age range in 2020.
On May 25, following the horrific mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom said, “Guns are now the leading cause of death for kids in America.” The governor was likely omitting abortion data.
On May 27, CBS News reported, “New data from the CDC shows firearm deaths were the leading cause of death for children for the first time in 2020.” CBS was not counting the abortion numbers.
There was no indication hat this article superceded Collins' earlier article or that the numbers were drastically changed from her earlier effort.
By not holding Collins publicly accountable for whatever errors she apparently made in her first artcle and trying to flush it down the memory hole instead -- and forgetting that the internet never forgets -- CNS is doing its interns a disservice. It's supposed to be journalism, which is all about accoutability. Instead, as with letting another intern write an article that was discredited before it was even published -- CNS is teaching its interns to push political narratives and evade responsibility when they go wrong.
