On Monday evening, former President Barack Obama tweeted his response to the Nashville Christian school shooting by repeating the left’s false claim that guns are the number one killer of children.
On March 23, 2023, Breitbart News reported that actor Billy Porter made the same false claim, screaming that “the leading cause of death in children are guns” during an appearance on ABC’s The View.
Porter’s claim, which is now Obama’s claim as well, became a common one among leftists and non-fact-checking moderates in the summer of 2022 after a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was widely reported in late May that year.
FOX News ran a story titled “Guns now the leading cause of death for US children, per CDC.” The story noted that CDC figures show firearm-related deaths of people ages 0-19 totaled 4,368 in 2020, while motor vehicle deaths for the same age range totaled 4,036. And during a June 2, 2022, speech, President Joe Biden reacted to the CDC figures by claiming, “Guns are the number one killer of children.”
But Breitbart News dug into the CDC figures and ascertained that the only way to make the claim work is to count 18 and 19-year-olds as children. But if one does a custom search on the CDC website to adjust the category of children to include only those aged 0-17, only those below voting and military age, then the outcome completely flips.
Hellbound and Down 