toot by @MissingThePt@mastodon.social
Someone REALLY need to stop that toddler.
The only thing that can stop a bad toddler with a gun is a good toddler with a gun.
There should be a law to prevent the sale to toddlers if they don’t pass a mental health test.
I have a toddler, I totally can see them discharing a firearm. It’s not shocking on deadeye Janet, it’s shocking on the now dead parent who didn’t safely store their firearms.
Unfortunately they often kill siblings (not that the death of parents wasn’t unfortunate, but at least they have some culpability).
Surely this can’t be accurate…right?
Shockingly, it is accurate as long as you consider age 3 and under a toddler. I also don’t think they’re literally tracking it by day but rather just more than 52/year. No matter the pedantic concerns, the deaths from guns in the US is sickening.
The evidence for this article was even investigated by Snopes and found to be true. They framed it as “more toddlers kill in the US than foreign terrorists.” This was all from 2015/2016. And it’s only gotten worse since then. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/toddlers-killed-americans-terrorists/
Gun deaths in the US are astronomical. In 2021, 184 deaths by guns from children 5 and under. More than 3 per week. From kids under 5 alone. This is a good read about gun violence in US children overall: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/06/gun-deaths-among-us-kids-rose-50-percent-in-two-years/
Damn near 50,000 US gun deaths overall in 2021. That is more than 130 people PER DAY. Just utterly depressing. And leaders still fail to bring about any significant change. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
Well when the leaders see things like this and their go to is to yell about “assault rifles” and then provide unlimited funding for military contractors who are the people who build “assault rifles” it’s not really a surprise that the problem continues. If a congress person mentions “assault weapons” they should never be voted for again, because they clearly do not understand the problem.
Here’s the article: https://metro.co.uk/2017/01/04/a-toddler-has-now-shot-someone-every-week-for-two-solid-years-in-america-6360264/
Edit: yes, the headline is misleading. The article only claimed there had been at least as many toddler shootings as weeks for two consecutive years.
Well there was just a toddler that shot themselves a week ago in Lansing, MI https://www.wilx.com/2023/10/26/lansing-2-year-old-dies-after-shooting-himself/