US gun violence facts and statistics
In 2020, guns became the leading cause of death among teenagers and children in the US. More than 4,300 children and teenagers died of firearm-related injuries in that year, compared to the second leading cause of death, car accidents, which killed around 3,900 young people.
More than 45,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the US in 2020–more than any year before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 43% percent of these deaths were homicides.
Around 1.5 million people have died from gun-related injuries in the US between 1968 and 2017, which is higher than the number of soldiers killed in every US conflict since the War for Independence in 1775.
The US has the highest ratio of firearms per capita, with 120.5 firearms per 100 residents–up from 88 per 100 in 2011.
In the US, 79% of murders involve a gun, compared to 37% in Canada, 13% in Australia, and 4% in the UK.
There have been 27 school shootings in the US this year so far, compared to 34 in 2021, according to Education Week.
There have been 213 mass shootings in the US in 2022 so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which also says that 140 children and 507 teenagers have been killed this year already
Recent research has found firearms are the second leading cause of death among American children and adolescents, after car crashes. Firearm deaths occur at a rate more than three times higher than drownings.
2013-2019 fatal firearm injuries for children and teens have risen unabated. Rates of death from firearms among ages 14 to 17 became 22.5% higher than motor vehicle-related death rates. In the United States, middle- and high school-age children were more likely to die as the result of a firearm injury than from any other single cause of death.
For Americans between the ages of 1 and 19, a little over half of 2017 firearm-related deaths are homicides.
Another 38% of firearm-related deaths in this age group are suicides, while the rest result from unintentional injuries or undetermined causes.
(Marc A. Zimmerman, Patrick Carter, and Rebecca Cunningham. “The Facts on Children and Teens Killed by Guns.” The Trace. August 19, 2019.)
Think of this: Gun deaths of school-age children in the United States have increased at an alarming rate, according to a study by Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine.
Indeed, spikes in gun deaths over the past decade amount to epidemics, researchers said.
“It is sobering that in 2017, there were 144 police officers who died in the line of duty and about 1,000 active duty military throughout the world who died, whereas 2,462 school-age children were killed by firearms,” said Dr. Charles Hennekens, the study’s senior author and an academic adviser at the medical college.
That means more U.S. Children died from guns than on-duty police or global military fatalities. The study, to be published in the American Journal of Medicine, found that children are being gunned down in staggering numbers, with the death rate six to nine times higher than other developed nations.
(Ray Sanchez. “More US school-age children die from guns than on-duty US police or global military fatalities, study finds.” CNN. March 22, 2019.)
Who suffers the most from the gun epidemic? African-American children and teens are more than eight times more likely to die from firearm homicide than their white counterparts. Firearms have been the leading cause of death for African-American youth for well over a decade.
Although firearm-related rates of death for children and teens living in urban, suburban and rural communities are similar, rural rates of firearm suicide are twice as high and unintentional firearm injuries are four times higher than in urban communities. Meanwhile, firearm homicide rates are twice as high in urban than in rural communities.
Pew’s data indicates that 54% of firearm owners with children under 18 living in the home have their firearms locked away. This suggests to us that young children and teens may have relatively easy access to unsecured firearms.
Established in 2017 with NIH funding, the Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens (FACTS) Consortium is one of these efforts, with a focus on conducting critical firearm injury prevention research while respecting legal and safe firearm ownership. We lead FACTS, in which academics from 14 universities from around the country are involved.
Members of this consortium have begun to investigate key research questions, such as the best methods for health care providers to counsel families about safe firearm storage, interventions to decrease firearm suicide risks among rural teen households, and the effect of state firearm laws on school shootings.
Just as other public health problems have turned to scientific evidence to prevent injuries, the United States should use evidence to inform policies that protect children and teens. Much more can be done to address this vital public health problem.
(Marc A. Zimmerman, Patrick Carter, and Rebecca Cunningham. “The Facts on Children and Teens Killed by Guns.” The Trace. August 19, 2019.)
I pray the nation comes to terms with its conscience and opens its hearts and minds to the need for a research-based dialogue on gun violence to enact much-needed reform. How much longer are we to endure the senseless slaughter of our children in the name of the Second Amendment?
Do you believe the following opinion of what happened at the school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022? After the massacre, Idaho resident Kathy Miller expressed these sentiments echoed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations.
Miller said …
“This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them.
“It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.”
(‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668. The Onion. May 25, 2022.)
At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”
Do you really believe this?
Only Children
By Felicity Paris (April 2020)
we marched to school
each morning
with only one intent
to strengthen our minds with
knowledge
and understand what our parents meant
when we were
children
we marched side by side, slowly
trusting that we
would be fine
that some hero would protect us
no one told us
we were walking blind
we were only children
we sat in
closets, quiet
with no one daring to move
our hands and
prayers raised up high
oh, how our parents would disapprove
we
were only children
we did nothing to
him
but you see us on the news
our faces will be remembered
and now it’s time to accuse
we were only children
they
blame it on the people
with no thought being played
to the
weapons bringing violence
to his tragic escapade
they forget
the children
the blame is always placed
but no reforms are
ever made
we marched to school so blindly
and we were still
betrayed.
we were only children.
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