METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study in which we used 2011–2015 Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System and Census data. We measured the association of the (1) strictness of firearm legislation (gun law score) and (2) presence of the 3 aforementioned gun laws with pediatric firearm-related mortality. We performed negative binomial regression accounting for differences in state-level characteristics (population-based race and ethnicity, education, income, and gun ownership) to derive mortality rate ratios associated with a 10-point change in each predictor and predicted mortality rates.

RESULTS: A total of 21 241 children died of firearm-related injuries during the 5-year period. States with stricter gun laws had lower rates of firearm-related pediatric mortality (adjusted incident rate ratio 0.96 [0.93–0.99]). States with laws requiring universal background checks for firearm purchase in effect for ≥5 years had lower pediatric firearm-related mortality rates (adjusted incident rate ratio 0.65 [0.46–0.90]).

CONCLUSIONS: In this 5-year analysis, states with stricter gun laws and laws requiring universal background checks for firearm purchase had lower firearm-related pediatric mortality rates. These findings support the need for further investigation to understand the impact of firearm legislation on pediatric mortality.

This morning a lot of websites are touting a new study in Pediatrics that claims various forms of gun control reduce “pediatric” firearm deaths. By this the researchers mean deaths among all Americans aged 21 and under. (As I’ve pointed out before, also in the context of gun research in Pediatrics, even when you limit the age range to 18, you’re mainly talking about older teens, not young kids.)

Normally, if you want to know what effect a law has, you look to see what changed before and after it went into effect. Do states that enact the law experience different trends relative to states that don’t? This study doesn’t do that; though it combines five years’ worth of data, it just compares gun-death rates across states with various scores from the anti-gun Brady Campaign. It’s “cross-sectional,” in other words. It doesn’t tell us whether the laws actually do anything, or if states with fewer gun deaths are more likely to enact the laws to begin with.

You can add assorted “control variables” to make these comparisons a bit better, and the authors do, but at the end of the day this is not compelling. It’s not rigorous enough to even be included in the RAND Corporation gun-study review I wrote about last year, which quite sensibly excluded cross-sectional research entirely.

featureless wrote: Tue Jul 16, 2019 12:13 pm The study misses the fact that a huge percentage of all gun homicide occurs in young males between ages ~15 to 21 that would grossly alter the meaningfulness of this study. These are those young men who's fathers have been incarcerated, have no access to healthy food, have no access to equitable employment, have no social value placed on education, have no social safety net beyond gangs, etc. Tightening gun safety laws will do exactly nothing for this group. Again, if the purpose is lowering gun homicide, there are much better ways to do it that would actually promote an equitable society. Disincentivizing drug trafficking-related violence by decriminalizing drugs would be a huge step forward. But, better to spin a study to get to the desired conclusion that will continue to leave those in the dregs.