“Bloomberg’s 60-second commercial, which his campaign unveiled Thursday, features an emotional Calandrian Simpson Kemp of Houston, Texas, talking about her late son, George Kemp Jr., who was fatally shot during an altercation in 2013.
As Kemp calls it a “national crisis” that “lives are being lost every day” to guns, a graphic on screen says, “2,900 children die from gun violence every year.” She later asserts that the gun lobby should fear Bloomberg because “Mike’s fighting for every child.”
Bloomberg’s campaign told us the statistic comes from the former New York mayor’s own nonprofit that advocates stricter gun laws, Everytown for Gun Safety. But that organization used different language in a June 2019 fact sheet.
“Annually, nearly 2,900 children and teens (ages 0 to 19) are shot and killed, and nearly 15,600 are shot and injured,” the document said. (The emphasis is ours.)
That doesn’t include Kemp’s son, who was 20 at the time of his death nearly seven years ago. But it does include many 18- and 19-year-olds who also were legally considered adults in most U.S. states — not “children,” as the ad claims.
When limited to young people ages 0 to 17, the number of firearm-related deaths drops by nearly half to roughly 1,499 per year, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. (That’s the average over the five years from 2013-2017, the same time period used in Everytown for Gun Safety’s calculation.)
And not all of them were murdered like George Kemp or the young students at a school in Newtown, Connecticut, which could be the impression some get from the two examples used in the ad.
The majority of those — 792 — were homicides (which includes legal interventions) while 590, or around 39%, were deaths by suicide. The remainder were either unintentional deaths (88) or deaths in which the intent couldn’t be determined (30).
It is certainly not our intent to minimize the deaths of those young people older than 17, but the fact is, a lot of them, if not all, were not “children” by law.”
I'm sure stricter gun laws would have prevented the gang bangers who shot her son from having guns. Just like in Chicago.
The left lies and distorts facts. That's what They do.
Bloomberg is just burning his money. He couldn't beat Trump.
It’s funny Sled here they want to compare ads. One is Bloomberg inflating Statistics on child murder and the other is Trump helping Alice Johnson and criminal justice reform. Morons here attempt to obfuscate the comparison by bringing in an issue not even addressed in the Trump ad. It’s who the lib morons are and what they do.
Gang bangers don't start at age 18. And when a gang banger shoots an 8 year old with an illegal firearm I'm not very motivated to give up my guns. Guiliani went after gang bangers and saved thousands of black kids. You leftards hated him for that. Imagine targeting criminals lowers crime and save lives.
Except that Trump actually directly helped Alice Johnson and she has said he was responsible for her freedom. Whereas Bloomberg used a random tragedy to pump up his gun control agenda.
That's very true. But I still think it's best to just help out but then not draw attention to it for self-benefit.
Gonna Hafta strongly disagree here. Drawing attention for self-benefit is the raison d'être of politicians.
Gang bangers don't start at age 18. And when a gang banger shoots an 8 year old with an illegal firearm I'm not very motivated to give up my guns. Guiliani went after gang bangers and saved thousands of black kids. You leftards hated him for that. Imagine targeting criminals lowers crime and save lives.
Except that Trump actually directly helped Alice Johnson and she has said he was responsible for her freedom. Whereas Bloomberg used a random tragedy to pump up his gun control agenda.
That's very true. But I still think it's best to just help out but then not draw attention to it for self-benefit.
It’s the damn Super Bowl. Both guys were wrong in running ads period.
Except that Trump actually directly helped Alice Johnson and she has said he was responsible for her freedom. Whereas Bloomberg used a random tragedy to pump up his gun control agenda.
That's very true. But I still think it's best to just help out but then not draw attention to it for self-benefit.
The stakes are too high and the media will continue to lie and push their agenda. Your opinion is magnanimous but the uncomfortable promotion is probably needed.
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Bloomberg is just burning his money. He couldn't beat Trump.
Gonna Hafta strongly disagree here. Drawing attention for self-benefit is the raison d'être of politicians.
Like anyone who has ever been there would know when they cross the border.