A new statistical analysis report shows that despite a child-homicide

rate in the United States which surpasses that of most other Western

nations, firearms are near the bottom of the list of causes for the

alarming statistics.

According to a report drafted by Iain Murray, a senior research

analyst at the Statistical Assessment Service, a Washington-based non-profit, non-partisan think

tank, "in the rush to reduce America's high juvenile homicide rates into

a gun-control debate, we're missing the chilling bigger picture of the

real and deadly risks our children face, and what it says about our

society."

The most recent statistical data available on child homicide rates,

Murray said, indicated that the U.S. had the highest infant-child

homicide rate -- four times as high -- as all other Western nations

surveyed, at 4.1 children per 100,000 people.

But "for every American child 4 or younger" that is murdered, he

said, "more than eight others die violently by other means -- blunt

objects, strangulation or, most commonly, hands, fists or feet."

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Even in the 5-14 age group, he said, the U.S. non-gun murder rate is

more than double the rates taken from the international sampling group,

"although the rate of murders by firearms does increase considerably as

children get older."

One of the most recent high-profile child murder cases involving a

gun was the shooting death of six-year-old Kayla Rolland, who was killed

by a classmate in a Michigan school last month. As expected, the

incident sparked more calls for childproofing handguns -- such as adding

trigger locks -- from traditional gun control advocates and from the

Clinton administration.

Some experts have said the Rolland case may even have been the

impetus for Smith & Wesson, one of the

nation's largest handgun makers, to strike a deal with the

administration that would prevent the company from being sued by

municipalities and the Justice Department, who say gun makers shoulder

responsibility for illegal acts committed with guns they manufacture.

Specifically, Smith & Wesson executives agreed to add trigger locks to

all handguns sold by the company, and to forbid shipment of their

handguns to dealers who would not agree to the company's new childproof

packaging mandates.

But Murray said the statistics don't measure up to the hype.

"While the rate of child gun homicide in the U.S. is much higher than

elsewhere -- as everyone acknowledges -- so is the rate of non-gun

murder," he said. "Even if all the gun homicides were taken out of the

equation, America would still have an infant-homicide rate more than 3.5

times as high as the other Western countries," a phenomenon he called

"staggering."

America's obsession with guns and gun violence, Murray said, is

understandable, but that obsession is "blinding us to another

significant social problem," noting that in 1997 alone, 738 children

under the age of 13 were murdered across the country (but only 133 by

guns, according to the FBI).

"America is witnessing something barbaric happening to its young

children," Murray said, noting that the figures might be unbelievable

had they not been tallied by official U.S. government sources.

He said the case of another child, 23-month-old Brianna Blackmond,

"is more typical of the young children killed in this country." She died

in January from a blow to the head given to her by her mother after

being returned from a foster home.

"But how much press attention did that death receive outside

Washington, compared with Kayla Rolland's tragic but unusual death?"

Murray asked.

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It is also important to note, he said, "that the main thrust of the

'Kids and Guns' study" -- a recent government report -- "is that the

rise and subsequent fall in the murder rate among older juveniles in the

1990s was driven by firearm murders and the consequent gun-control

measures. ... But this does not apply to murders of children aged 13 or

younger."

Murray said the murder rate in that group was 1.8 per 100,000 in 1976

and 1.7 in 1997, "never having risen above 2.1 in the intervening 20

years."

"Children under 13 are being killed just about as often now as they

were during the height of the crack-fueled murder boom of the early

1990s," said the STATS researcher. "If anything has been done to combat

the problem, it hasn't worked," which, ostensibly, includes a number of

new gun-control laws that have been passed over the last 20 years.

Yet the data show something surprising: 85 percent of U.S. counties

reported no child homicides -- by any cause -- in 1997, while just 7

percent experienced two or more.

"In great swaths of the country, child murder is virtually unknown,"

Murray said. "The problem is confined mainly to the big cities of the

East and West coasts, and to the Southwest."

The research analyst also questioned the wisdom of universal gun laws

emanating from the federal level. Though gun violence in otherwise

peaceful suburban communities seems to garner headlines, "the

overwhelming majority of child murders happen elsewhere. This fact alone

would imply that across-the-board federal solutions affecting the entire

country may be misplaced," he said.

Though it would seem more sensible to use government resources to

"concentrate where the problem is the greatest," Murray added that other

feel-good measures, such as having "pediatricians nationwide ... talk to

all young children about guns," as some national pediatric groups have

proposed, "is well-intentioned, but will achieve little."

"By letting ourselves believe that guns are the problem for

pre-adolescents, we are avoiding the unpalatable truth that something is

very wrong in American society," Murray said. "We focus on exceptional

cases, and ignore the unsettling nature of the daily reality."

But, he said, there may be "a lesson here."

"We may be able to reduce child-murder rates to the levels of other

countries if we concentrate on what causes those murders -- and guns

aren't the biggest factor."

There may be a hidden "domino effect," he said, that causes children

who live in unstable or dangerous environments "where their lives have

little value" to also regard the lives of others in the same light "when

they are seduced by the power of the gun." Breaking that cycle and

making childhood safer and saving the lives of the youngest children may

help save older children down the road, Murray said.

"Perhaps the safety locks we most need are the ones that other

civilized countries place in their citizens' consciences," he said.

While the tragic deaths of the "Kayla Rollands are thankfully the

exception rather than the rule ... it is the Brianna Blackmonds who

really deserve the attention of the nation's doctors and the president."