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Earlier this year, the Million Mom March asked people to donate their valuable time and money with the words, "Every day, 12 children die from gunshot wounds. Each day there is no action on this issue, we lose 12 more children." This is a lie. It is a fraudulent, misleading, and deceptive statement-- and the Million Mom organizers knew it. They got this figure by redefining young adults-- one of the peak age groups for violent criminals who often die by gunfire (each others', as well as that of police and armed citizens)-- as children to obtain a sensationalistic figure. They spoke Clintonese: "It depends on what you mean by 'children.'"

Removal of the young adults (18-19) leaves a figure closer to 6.3 a day. You might say, "So what if 12 a day is a lie? Even 6.3 a day is too many." It's not about how many deaths from firearm misuse are acceptable, because the answer is zero-- in any age group. (Our side may disagree with yours only about how to achieve this.) It's about lying versus telling the truth. It's about credibility, character, honesty, and integrity. The Million Mom March trumped up a phony issue for the aggrandizement (publicity and power) of self-serving manipulative demagogues.

Even the 6.3 figure for minors overstates the case. The MMM wants you to think that that they're kids like yours or your neighbors' who find unattended guns and shoot themselves or their playmates by accident. A large share of these deaths are actually among violent juvenile criminals like gang members. But even this argument digresses from the bottom line, which is that the Million Mom March knowingly and willfully lied when it said that 12 children a day are killed by gunfire.

This is far from the only problem with the Million Mom March, which was a project of the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt Bell Campaign earlier this year. 501(c)(3)s are not allowed to campaign for political candidates, but the MMM touted House candidates Carloyn McCarthy (D-NY), Joe Hoeffel (D-PA) and Connie Morella (R-NY) on its "Apple Pie Award" page while attacking Tom DeLay (R-TX) on its "Time Out Chair" page. The MMM later took these names off its Web site-- perhaps a tacit admission that they shouldn't have been there. (This is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer. The IRS has not, as far as I know,  ruled on the propriety or impropriety of the MMM's actions.)

Journalists: How do you feel about being given phony and fraudulent information to relay to your readers, viewers, and listeners?
Million Mom Chapter Organizers: How do you feel about being used to deceive personal friends and associates?
Civil Rights Supporters: How do you feel about the Million Mom March's use of the racist buzzword "[Negrotown] Saturday Night Special?" ("Negro" wasn't the word that the white supremacists who coined this term used. Their goal was to outlaw inexpensive "cheap" handguns that could be purchased by working-class Blacks for self-protection against the KKK.)