Guns are the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens, since surpassing car accidents in 2020, reported CNN last week.
Firearms accounted for nearly 19 percent of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. In no other comparable country are firearms within the top four causes of mortality among children, according to the report.
There have been 130 mass shootings so far in 2023, the highest number of shootings recorded at this point in any year since at least 2013, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
Child and teen mortality overall surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, driven not by COVID-19 deaths but by fatal injuries, according to a new study. Firearms accounted for nearly half of the increase in mortality in 2020.
