Teen Vogue has criticized the “extremist” gun rights movement while advocating for national reciprocity for concealed carry laws in its recent electoral endorsements of Republicans.
The magazine asserts that increasing gun control contributes to safety, claiming that firearms, which are unfortunately the leading cause of death among children, do not make us safer—a view it suggests is a myth.
In asserting that gun control leads to safety, Teen Vogue has referenced “firearm-related death rates” instead of actual gun fatalities, which some see as a strategy to divert attention from high gun death numbers in areas with strict laws.
As reported on May 23, 2023, by Breitbart News, this focus on “rates” rather than raw numbers is a common tactic among activists who prefer not to emphasize the alarming gun death statistics in heavily regulated states and cities.
For instance, on May 13, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom (D) tweeted a rhetorical question about why gun violence rates are significantly lower in certain parts of California compared to Florida, implying that environmental factors like humidity may play a role.
This tweet, alongside criticism of Florida’s laws advocating for constitutional and concealed carry, seems to promote California’s restrictive gun laws. However, the statistics reveal that in 2021, California recorded 2,495 murders, according to the CDC’s Murder Mortality Map.
The CDC data further indicates that Florida saw 1,468 murders in the same year.
Teen Vogue, while discussing Mississippi’s constitutional carry laws, has similarly pointed to “rates” rather than actual numbers. It’s worth noting that several other states with comparable gun regulations to Mississippi have experienced murder rates significantly lower than those in New Jersey.
Moreover, Teen Vogue‘s recent claims stating that guns are “the leading cause of death for American children” suggests a pressing need for additional gun legislation rather than a permissive “gun everywhere” stance.
Breitbart News has fact-checked this assertion and found it to be misleading. The claim that guns are “the number one murderer of American children” only holds when including young adults aged 18 and 19 in the definition of “children.”
