Cleveland Paper Issues Correction to False Headline About Gun Deaths

On Wednesday, I fact-checked a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that falsely claimed “gun violence” was the leading cause of death among Ohio children. I’m happy to report that the paper has issued a correction to its report, though I’d say their revised story still carries far too much water for the group Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio. 

The Plain Dealer headline now proclaims that gun violence is “among the leading causes of death” for Ohio children, when in truth firearms were involved in 6% of the 5,482 child deaths in the state between 2018 and 2022. CDF-Ohio, however, doesn’t include children under the age of 1 in its definition of “children”, but does include adults who are 18 and 19-years-old. 

Unlike its original report, the Plain Dealer does mention CDF-Ohio’s bizarre definition of “children”, albeit in paragraph five of its story. The paper also now notes that the highest number of firearm-involved deaths occurred among teens ages 15 to 19. My guess is if you broke that demographic down even further, what you’d find is that young adults make up a majority of those deaths, not children 17 and younger, but that would completely undercut CDF-Ohio’s claims. 

Still, while the Plain Dealer story and headline claim that “gun violence” is among the leading causes of death for children in Ohio, they don’t actually provide any data to prove that point. In large part, that’s because the CDF-Ohio report doesn’t contain any definite figures either, but there’s no reason why the paper’s reporters couldn’t try to corroborate the group’s claims by looking to outside data, just like I did. 

The Ohio Department of Health puts out an annual report on child deaths in the state, and unlike CDF-Ohio, they accurately define child from birth through 17-years-old. The department’s findings are strikingly different from CDF-Ohio. Firearms are not among the leading causes of death of Ohio children. In fact, they were involved in approximately 315 of the 5,482 childhood deaths in the state between 2018 and 2022. 

64% of child deaths in the state were due to natural causes, and infants under the age of 1 accounted for 62% of all child deaths. Another 20% of child deaths were the result of accidents. Suicide and homicide each account for 5% of child deaths in the state, with 6% of child deaths classified as “undetermined or unknown.” Keep in mind, though, that not every suicide or homicide involved a firearm. The ODH report says there were 289 suicides and 269 homicides between 2018 and 2022, while there were 315 firearm-involved deaths during that same time period. 

So, is it really fair to say that firearms are a leading cause of death for Ohio children? I don’t think so. If I’d been in charge of editing the Plain Dealer piece, I would have asked the reporter to not use a single source for their claims, and to see what kind of corroboration they could find between the CDF-Ohio report and data from outside sources like the Ohio Department of Health. 

As it turns out, there is at least one area of agreement. Both CDF-Ohio and the Ohio Department of Health reports indicate that many firearm-related deaths among children involved unsecured firearms. According to the ODH report, guns were unsecured in 39% of firearm-involved youth suicides, while 13% involved secured firearms. Firearms were unsecured in 71% of cases involving accidental shooting deaths, with just 2% of cases involving secured firearms. In both categories, though, there were “many cases where this information is not known,” so the ODH cautions that “care should be taken in interpreting this data.” 

I don’t think this makes the case for gun storage laws, which can only be enforced after the fact, but it does suggest that an educational campaign aimed at gun-owning parents might be helpful. Lawmakers could incentivize secure storage through tax credits and refunds on gun safes, while age-appropriate lessons on gun safety like the Eddie Eagle program could be taught in schools. 

Again, I’m glad to see that the Plain Dealer changed its headline and added a few more details to its story. I don’t know if that was the result of our coverage, reader feedback, or a combination of the two, but whatever the reason it was a step in the right direction. I just wish the paper had dug a little deeper instead of just taking CDF-Ohio’s report at face value, because I still don’t believe its readers are getting the full story when it comes to child deaths in the Buckeye State. 

Editor’s Note: All too often, the mainstream media is more interested in presenting an anti-gun narrative instead of accurately reporting on Second Amendment and firearm-related issues. 

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