At the beginning of this week leftists stopped calling guns the “No. 1 killer of children” and shifted the demographic to claim guns are the “No. 1 Killer of College-Age People.”
Breitbart News noted that former president Joe Biden was the first to make the false claim that guns were the “No. 1 Killer of Children” on June 2, 2022. He repeated the false claim numerous times over the following two years and the inaccurate claim was echoed by Kamala Harris, former president Barack Obama, pro-gun control actor Billy Porter, pro-gun control actress Alyssa Milano, film director Scott Derrickson, and many others.
Each time the claim was made Breitbart News did a fact check, noting it was based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures that counted 18-19 year-olds as “children” and asserted more firearm-related deaths for “children” in 2020 than motor vehicle deaths. (The total number of firearm-related deaths for people ages 0-19 totaled 4,368 in 2020, while motor vehicle deaths for the same age range totaled 4,036.)
Breitbart News was able to do a custom search on the CDC numbers limiting the category of children to those 0-17, i.e., those below voting age, and the data completely flipped. The number of firearm-related deaths for children aged 0-17 was 2,281 in 2020, while the number of motor vehicle deaths for the same ages was 2,503.
The left is now trying to salvage the claim by applying it to adults who are college age.
The Austin-American Statesman quoted the gun control lobby’s Moms Demand Action responding to the April 17, 2025, FSU shooting by saying, “Gun violence is the leading killer of college-aged people in the U.S.”
The Statesman noted that Mike Bloomberg-affiliate Everytown for Gun Safety pointed to information in the journal Pediatrics which said, “firearms are the leading cause of death in children and youth 0 to 24 years of age in the United States.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, a Pulsar Night Vision pro-staffer, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly: awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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