Kelly Osbourne, reality TV star and podcaster, has revealed plans to leave the United States once her son is old enough to attend school. The decision, she says, is motivated by her desire to protect her child from the threat of school shootings. Osbourne, who recently gave birth to a son with Slipknot rocker Sid Wilson, shared her concerns on Instagram, stating that she wants to move back to England when her son is ready to start school.
Osbourne, daughter of Ozzy Osbourne, the heavy metal rocker who bit the head off a bat onstage in 1982, expressed her fears about the prevalence of school shootings in the US. “I don’t ever want to have to explain what you have to do if somebody comes into your school with a gun,” she said. “That’s the main reason” for her decision to leave the country.
Data on school shootings in the US is often misleading, with some sources inflating the numbers to create a false narrative. The K-12 School Shooting Database, for example, has broadened the definition of a “school shooting” to include incidents where a gun is merely brandished, or where a bullet hits a school building but does not harm anyone.
This database also claims that firearms are the leading cause of death for American children, but this assertion relies on including 18 and 19-year-olds in the definition of “children.” When the age range is restricted to exclude those of voting age, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that more children die in car accidents than from gun violence.
In fact, CDC data reveals that in 2020, unintentional car deaths among children aged 0-19 were 27 times higher than unintentional gun deaths in the same age range. This information is often omitted by those pushing for stricter gun control measures, who prefer to focus on the more sensational narrative of school shootings.
