Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics is catching heat for claiming that gun-friendly states saw a rise in youth firearm deaths after the Supreme Court’s 2010 McDonald v. Chicago decision. But the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) is calling B.S.—and they’re not pulling any punches.
According to CPRC, the study’s title alone—“Firearm Laws and Pediatric Mortality in the US”—is misleading. The authors suggest that states with “permissive” gun laws saw more child deaths after the 2010 ruling, but CPRC says the whole thing is built on junk math and bad assumptions.
Table of contents
A Study That Ignores Reality
First off, CPRC slams the study for pretending laws don’t change over time. Colorado, for example, is labeled as a “permissive” state for the entire study period—even though it passed universal background checks, a mag ban, and a red flag law between 2013 and 2020. Blaming 2023 numbers on 2010-era laws? That’s not science, CPRC argues—that’s fiction.
Worse, the researchers grouped states into three vague categories—strict, permissive, and most permissive—without explaining how they weighed different laws. Is a red flag law more important than a safe storage mandate? Do you just add up the number of laws and call it a day? CPRC says this method is so arbitrary, it borders on meaningless.
No Controls, No Clue
Normally, serious research compares crime before and after laws change, while controlling for outside factors. This study doesn’t do that. It just compares states to each other in a snapshot, as if nothing else matters.
What did they leave out? A lot.
- Law enforcement presence
- Conviction and incarceration rates
- COVID-19 policies
- Unemployment, poverty, alcohol use
- Even the difference between murder and justifiable homicide
CPRC points out that not mentioning policing when talking about crime should’ve been a red flag for reporters. “This has to be one of the dumbest studies done in a long time,” the group says.
Playing with “Excess Deaths”
The researchers used a public health method called “excess deaths” to make their case. Basically, they predicted how many youth deaths they expected in each state based on old trends. Then, when reality didn’t match the prediction, they blamed gun laws for the difference.
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But CPRC calls that a rookie move. The “excess” could come from anything—errors in the model, missing variables, or things like COVID lockdowns, which caused homicide spikes in many places. The researchers didn’t even try to separate out those effects.
They used a Poisson regression model, which assumes that variance equals the mean—an assumption CPRC says almost never holds true in crime data. When that assumption breaks (as it likely did here), the results get skewed, and any claims of “significant” findings become shaky.
If You Want to Study Guns, Study Guns
One of the CPRC’s biggest gripes? The study doesn’t even try to look at actual changes in gun laws or their effects over time. Instead, it lumps everything into static categories and ignores reality on the ground. It’s the research equivalent of blaming the weather on your mood.
Worse, the authors never address whether those deaths involved legally owned firearms or if safe storage laws were violated. And they gloss over the difference between murder and justifiable self-defense—lumping them all under “homicide.”
Media Eats Up Child Deaths—No Questions Asked
Despite all these red flags, major outlets like The New York Times ran with the story uncritically. Reporters repeated the claim that “firearm deaths of children and teenagers rose significantly” in states with loosened gun laws—without bothering to question the data.
But as CPRC notes, when a paper ignores how laws change, skips basic controls, mislabels states, and draws sweeping conclusions from a broken model—it shouldn’t be taken seriously. And it definitely shouldn’t be used to drive policy.
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is a seasoned outdoorsman, lifelong hunter, and the kind of guy who’d rather track whitetails than scroll social media. As an editor for GunsAmerica, he’s got a sharp eye for spotting both solid gear and bad gun laws. Whether he’s deep in the woods or deep in editorial deadlines, Larry brings a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to firearms, hunting, and the great American tradition of self-reliance. If there’s a hot debate on gun rights or the latest in hunting tech, you can bet Larry’s got an opinion—and it’s probably backed up with both facts and field experience.
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Eksewhere, it has been pointed out that some sources of higher child-deaths due to gunfure, have included 23 and 24 yearolds, and above around 18 or so, the rates more than double the total
In their study what ages do they include as children? I’ve seen other studies that include young adults up to 20 years old to be lumped into the CHILD CATAGORY.
It became OBVIOUS to me 8, 10 years ago that the ravenous “news” WONKS CONSIDER “CHILDREN” up to NINETEEN years of age in highlighting “childrens’ ” deaths by firearms. Result, massive numbers of shootings, wounds, and deaths causes by CHILDREN 19 years of age and down to 13, Primarily, and mostly in larger urban areas where street gangs are everywhere. Now, Just YESTERDAY, a “CHILD” of 14 years age was found to be carrying a fully-loaded, 9 MM semi-automatic pistol on the Non-Inner-Big City of Naperville, Illinois’ normally quiet Downtown area. Arrested, taken to police station, and released TO HIS MOTHER’S custody with an ankle bracelet to “monitor” all his movements remotely. So, our radical anti-gunners and mostly female sob-sisters use these statistics to magnify and falsify shootings of all those
POOR CHILDREN!
When I was 13, my Uncle took me hunting for rabbits, quail, and pheasants, lending me his single-shot .410 shotgun. He carefully instructed me in every detail about safety, lethality, and careful handling when hunting. Dad bought a single-shot .410 shotgun for my birthday, which I used for 6, 7 years before graduating to a nice, used .16 gauge, double barrel Stevens shotgun. I am now 84 years old, and have NEVER shot up a school, robbed a 7/11 or even threatened anyone with firearms. The Liberal, APPOINTED “judges” are beholden to their party, so I understand why they, every one of them, ALWAYS “judge” by democrat based considerations.
Blackthorne
Yeah…im all for pro gun data. But John Lott and CPRC aren’t credible. An economist trying to conduct public health research. Its a no for me…he’s been debunked by too many…we gotta get beyond motivated reasoning. There is no evidence that affirms causation if guns possessed by adults reduces violent crime. That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t carry to protect, because people have too much access to guns and knives in this country. We don’t need a study for that. Its a situational necessity that defies statistics. However accessibility is a major contributor to adolescent and toddler gun death. That’s not something we can get around…we need a study that takes on modes of access prevention to youth that prevent death. That may mean ways to secure weapons that make people uncomfortable but whats more important?
quit pretending to be a conservative! you just espoused the anti gun mantra.
problem is teen gang members shooting each other….which really isn’t a problem at all