Are guns really the leading cause of death of black youth?
By Dr. Harold A. Black
blackh@knoxfocus.com
haroldblackphd.com
Recently, Kamala Harris headlined a political rally for Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic candidate for Senate from Maryland. Alsobrooks defeated David Trone in the Democrat primary. Trone is the multibillionaire from Total Wine who bought his seat in Congress and spent $62 million of his own money in a losing effort in the Senate primary. Good riddance. I am glad he lost. Harris used the occasion to tout Alsobrooks’ support for gun control legislation. Alsobrooks said that she would hold gun manufacturers accountable “for the immense harm that they have caused our state and country.” Alsobrooks also repeated the new mantra of the left that guns are the leading cause of death of young people.
That is interesting. Figures show that in 2022 there were about 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the US. More than half were suicides. Forty percent were classified as homicides. That means that less than 20,000 are the cause of the “immense harm” cited by Alsobrooks. Around 3,500 young people were killed by guns. Consider that there were 46,000 vehicle deaths in 2022. I guess Alsobrooks is going to hold the automobile manufacturers accountable for the immense harm that they are causing our country as well. Only within the past three years did death by automobile accidents be eclipsed by guns. Moreover, likely prompted by the White House the surgeon general has issued an advisory against guns declaring that gun violence is a “public health crisis.” I kid you not. The surgeon general – Vivek Murthy – said, “Over the last decade or two, this problem has been worsening and we have now reached the point where gun violence is the leading cause of death among kids and teens. That is something that we should never take as the new normal. There’s nothing normal about that.”
Are firearms really the largest killer of young people? This is not even close to the truth. The biggest killer of young blacks is the abortion industry with 500,000 deaths per year! Yet I bet Alsobrooks supports abortion on demand.
A friend of mine wanted me to contribute to an event celebrating Juneteenth. The celebration included support for expanding voter registration, teaching about the evils of slavery and advocating for a woman’s “right to choose.” I told him that I was all in favor of expanding voter registration but he should add voter education to the statement. I was also in favor of teaching an accurate accounting of slavery but I was opposed to carte blanche advocacy of abortion. I told him that the mantra used of “my body my choice” was inaccurate since it was not the woman’s body that was in peril but the baby’s. He said that he would not change the language regarding abortion on demand. I told him that in that case, I would not make a contribution.
Consider that there are over one million abortions performed each year. The CDC reports that 42 percent are non-Hispanic black women, 30 percent are non-Hispanic white women, 22 percent Hispanic and 6 percent other races. This is astounding since blacks are only 14 percent of the US population. In New York City the number of abortions exceeds the number of live births. Even after Dobbs, there remain over 1,000,000 abortions a year. If 500,000 are on blacks, then over the past 10 years there are 5,000,000 fewer black children in the country. How could anyone applaud that fact unless one were racist? By the way, how can a group called Black Lives Matter support unlimited abortion on demand? Apparently, some black lives do not matter.
Given that black women are among the most loyal of the democrat constituency it is safe to assume that the majority of those aborted black babies would have grown up to be democrat voters. Therefore, it seems to me that the Republicans should be supporters of abortion while the Democrats should oppose it. That the Democrats so strongly advocate decreasing the number of their voters while Republicans want the number of Democrats to increase is one of life’s ironies.
