Not a fact checker's argument, but PolitiFact went there

A few days ago we highlighted a gun-rights research group's criticism of a PolitiFact California fact check. The fact check found it "Mostly True" that over seven children per day fall victim to gun violence, even though that number includes suicides and "children" aged 18 and 19.

A dubious finding? Sure. But least PolitiFact California's fact check did not try use the rationale that might have made all victims of gun violence "children." But the PolitiFact video used to help publicize the fact check (narrated by PolitiFact California's Chris Nichols) went there:

How many teenagers in the background photo are 18 or over, we wonder?

Any parent will tell you that any child of theirs is a child, regardless of age. But that definition makes the modifier "children" useless in a claim about the effect on children from gun violence. "Children" under that broad definition includes all human beings with parents. That counts most, if not all, human beings as children.

Nichols' argument does not belong in a fact check. It belongs in a political ad designed around the appeal to emotion.

The only sensible operative definition of "children" here is humans not yet of age (18 years, in the United States). All persons under 18 are "children" by this definition. But not all teenagers are "children" by this definition.

To repeat the gist of the earlier assessment, the claim was misleading but PolitiFact covered for it with an equivocation fallacy. The equivocation fallacy from the video, featuring an even more outrageous equivocation fallacy, just makes PolitiFact marginally more farcical.




Edit: Added link to CPRC in first graph-Jeff 0735PST 1/12/2017

CPRC: "Is Politifact really the organization that should be fact checking Facebook on gun related facts?"

The Crime Prevention Research Center, on Dec. 29, 2016, published a PolitiFact critique that might well have made our top 11 if we had noticed it a few days sooner.

Though the title of the piece suggests a general questioning of PolitiFact's new role as one of Facebook's guardians of truth, the article mainly focuses on one fact check from PolitiFact California, rating "Mostly True" the claim that seven children die each day from gun violence.

The CPRC puts its strongest argument front and center:

Are 18 and 19 year olds “children”?

For 2013 through 2015 for ages 0 through 19 there were 7,838 firearm deaths.  If you exclude 18 and 19 year olds, the number firearm deaths for 2013 through 2015 is reduced by almost half to 4,047 firearm deaths.  Including people who are clearly adults drives the total number of deaths.

Even the Brady Campaign differentiates children from teenagers.  If you just look at those who aren’t teenagers, the number of firearm deaths declines to 692, which comes to 0.63 deaths per day.

This argument cuts PolitiFact California's fact check to the quick. Instead looking at "children" as something to question, the fact-checkers let it pass with a "he-said, she said" caveat (bold emphasis added):

These include all types of gun deaths from accidents to homicides to suicides. About 36 percent resulted from suicides.

Some might take issue with Speier lumping in 18 year-olds and 19 year-olds as children.

Gun deaths for these two ages accounted for nearly half of the 7,838 young people killed in the two-year period.

Yes, some might take issue with lumping 18 year-olds and 19 year-olds in as children, particularly when checking Merriam-Webster quickly reveals how the claim stretches the truth. The distortion maximizes the emotional appeal of protecting "children."

Merriam-Webster's definition No. 2:

a :  a young person especially between infancy and youth
b :  a childlike or childish person  
c :  a person not yet of age

"A person not yet of age" provides the broadest reasonable understanding of the claim PolitiFact California checked. In the United States, persons 18 and over qualify as "of age."

Taking persons over 18 out of the mix all by itself cuts the estimate nearly in half. Great job, PolitiFact California.

Visit CPRC for more, including the share of "gun violence" accounted for by suicide and justifiable homicide.