1 Child or Youth suffers gunshot injury each day in Ontario

[MikePal]

Interesting study, I hadn't realized there were so many accidental (unintentional) injuries involving kids in Ontario.

Firearms injure a child or youth almost every day in Ontario, say researchers, who analyzed hospital records to determine which groups of young people are most at risk for gun-related accidents or violent assault.

Their study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found there were 355 firearm injuries an average each year among children and youth, about one quarter of which resulted in death.

"Three-quarters are unintentional, so these are accidents that happen, and about 25 per cent are intentional or assault," said senior author Dr. Astrid Guttmann, a pediatrician at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

When the researchers looked at provincial hospital emergency room records for gun-related injuries, they found Canadian-born youth, particularly males, had the highest rates of unintentional firearm injury -- 12 per 100,000 people versus about seven per 100,000 for immigrant males.

But when it came to firearm injuries due to assault, immigrants and refugees were at much higher risk than their non-immigrant counterparts.

Refugee children and youth were 1.4 times more likely to be shot than Canadian-born residents of the same age, while immigrant children and youth from Africa were almost three times as likely and those from Central America almost four times as likely to be a victim of a firearm assault, the study found.

Males in all three groups were at highest risk of suffering a gunshot injury, said Guttmann, chief science officer at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, which collected the data.

Good article, worth the read...

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/one-chi...tudy-1.3341954

[Fox]

I read it, this is a very weird written article. They say how many were hurt intentionally and un-intentionally including suicides, homicides and then broke up the ages without having the totals broken up as well.

They then stated that people who want to own guns need to be screened (They are) and that anyone who wants to have a gun needs to be taught how to store safely (They are and this is the law).

I don't know what they are trying to do with this law, I would like to see the breakdown of unintentional in a legally owned rural household.

I have not actually heard of any unintentional shootings outside of a hunting situation and most of those involve people who would be old enough to be grandfathered into the PAL and Hunter Safety Course system.

[Hunter John]

Agree Fox. Weird article for sure and it doesn't pass the smell test imho.

[Fox]

Agree Fox. Weird article for sure and it doesn't pass the smell test imho.

I just expect people who have no idea to think we are the same for our laws as the US, they actually stated that there are "other (research) literature that children who live in homes where there are guns are more likely to have an accident with a gun", what research? Show your work. You say that in a house with a gun you are more likely to be hurt by that gun but why? Is it a loaded handgun in the drawer of the night stand? We cannot legally have that here but I do not doubt that many readers would assume the Hollywood rules are the same in Canada.

[trimmer21]

Just more skewed,anti-gun drivel. These "stats" don't even make sense.

[ninepointer]

What that article tells me is that my kids are more likely to be killed or injured by the chemicals under my kitchen sink, the meds in my bathroom or the tools in my garage.

[MikePal]

Just more skewed,anti-gun drivel. These "stats" don't even make sense.

It doesn't serve well for the firearms community to take a knee jerk defensive posture when articles like this are published.

If it wasn't for the fact that it was published in the CMA I'd question the motive....but its not an opinion piece or an 'anti' driven article, but a statement of facts gathered thru hospital ER visits it has credence.

Their study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found there were 355 firearm injuries an average each year among children and youth, about one quarter of which resulted in death.

[welsh]

I just expect people who have no idea to think we are the same for our laws as the US, they actually stated that there are "other (research) literature that children who live in homes where there are guns are more likely to have an accident with a gun", what research? Show your work.

Are you seriously suggesting this is made up?

[Roper]

I read the article in this mornings Hamilton Spectator. The title "ONE CHILD OR YOUTH SUFFERS GUNSHOT INJURY EACH DAY IN ONTARIO" is hard to accept. I flat out don't believe that statement to be true. Where is the reporting of these incidents? I understand the article intended to put a negative spin on gun ownership - but wish they could do a better jobs of accurately reporting the facts to back up the titles claim.

[welsh]

Here is a link to the full study:
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/189/12/E452.full.pdf+html

The real aim of the study is to compare rates of firearms in immigrant and non-immigrant populations. Non-immigrant populations were found to have higher unintentional injury rates, with rural residence correlating to risk of injury.

No big surprises there, except that the rate of injuries seems high -- although the paper itself does note that our rate of injury is in fact low compared to other countries.

The number of firearms injuries is derived from the number of ER visits where the injury was coded as firearms related. Note that this may include pellet gun injuries and even kids hit in the eye with Airsoft pellets. It all depends how the physician coded a pellet gun injury. There is no way to know that without getting deep into the data.