My weekly contribution to “Mouthwash” [FN1] is smalltalk. Last evening [FN2] the topic was violence & police. Panelist Libertarian Lucy [FN3] w/background photo of a woman firing an assault weapon, called me “delusional” & “disingenuous” to say firearms are 1/10

kids’ leading cause of death, leftists lie about facts & her Google® search showed homicides way down the list of causes of kids’ deaths. She never explains the dead kids, observes I don’t have kids & said she & her husband passed joining MENSA. 2/10

1) For 2016 an article in New England Journal of Medicine placed guns at number 2 [FN4], but CDC showed guns in 1st place 2019 to 2021. [FN5] All those kids were killed by guns. 3/10

2) NEJM and the CDC use “cause of death,” but people who advocate for guns try to duck issues by saying, for example, there’s no “assault weapon”; “cause of death”: “happening, occurrence, or condition that makes a person die.” [FN6.] All those kids were killed by guns. 4/10

3) Lucy is correct to describe me as “emotional” over this issue, but my arguments are sound and supported by the facts. Lucy is the person who misleads by obscuring all those kids were killed by guns. And she never said how guns make her “free.” 5/10

Later I’ll watch the rest of last evening’s Show. In the meantime, the first step toward ending gun violence is: don’t own a gun. (And wtf was that about MENSA?) 6/10

Footnotes: FN1. John Schmitz’s podcast on Facebook that streams on Tuesday’s at 9 & then is aired on WHMB, ch 40, Monday’s 11:30 pm; FN2. 2-minute segment starts at about 21:15; FN3. Lucy Brenton ran for the U.S. Senate as a Libertarian in 2016 & 2018; 7/10

Footnotes: FN4. Cunningham, et al, “Major Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States,” New England Journal of Medicine, 12/20/18: 2016 vehicle crashes were leading cause of kids’ deaths (20% ) of all deaths w/firearm-related injuries 2nd (15%); 8/10

Footnote: FN5. https://usafacts.org/data-projects/child-death; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the growing childhood death rates between 2019 and 2021 were primarily due to firearm injuries, drug overdoses, and car accidents. 9/10

Footnotes: FN6. Black’s Law Dictionary, 10th ed., 2014, p. 267.Lucy Brenton was, Libertarian Party . 10/10