Using Children

Howard Nemerov has an interesting piece on Using Children for Political Ends. He mentions a lot of the same things we do in our arguments, but he takes it one step further. Here's a little bit, with the superscript footnote number thingys* removed for clarity:

Another gambit by anti-gun organizations is to include older teens and adults in their calculations, in order to produce at a scarier number, implying that eight children a day die because 'gun lovers' only care about 'their rights.'

Oxford English Dictionary defines the word 'childhood' as: 'the time from birth to puberty.' Oxford defines 'puberty' as: 'The period during which adolescents reach sexual maturity and become capable of reproduction'' In terms of age, there seems to be general agreement that this ability to procreate occurs by the age of 15.

In 2005, the total firearms death rate for CDF's 'children and teens' was 3.70. However, the rate for those age 18-19 was 18.56, and the rate for those age 15-17 was 8.50. For true children (age 0-14) the rate was 1.31; 404 children were killed by firearms in 2005 for all intents, an average of slightly over one per day.

There's lots, lots more. Go check it out.

Does anyone know what those superscript footnote number thingys are called?