Firearms Leading Cause of Teen and Child Death in 2020
Firearms killed more people ages 1 to 19 in the U.S. than vehicle crashes, drug overdoses or cancer, according to a research letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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According to a research letter recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, more than 4,300 children and teens died of firearm-related injuries in 2020, a 29.5 percent increase from 2019.
Guns killed more people ages 1 to 19 in the U.S. than vehicle crashes, drug overdoses or cancer, the letter said.
Gun homicides alone, which disproportionately affect younger Americans, went up by 33 percent from 2019 to 2020.
“The increasing firearm-related mortality reflects a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death,” wrote researcjers Jason E. Goldstick, Ph.D., Rebecca M. Cunningham, M.D., and Patrick M. Carter, M.D., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
The researchers said he new data are “consistent with other evidence that firearm violence has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic,” but said the the reasons for the increase are unclear.
“It cannot be assumed that firearm-related mortality will later revert to pre-pandemic levels,” they wrote.
Most of the children killed by firearms in 2020 were 14 and older even though the legal age to purchase guns is 18. As a result of gun ownership increasing during the coronavirus pandemic more than 5 million children under 18 became newly exposed to guns in their households from January 2019 to April 2021.
A 2021 study found that a reported rise in firearm acquisitions after the pandemic started was correlated with higher rates of fatal and nonfatal gun injuries both suffered by young children and inflicted by them.
