Firearm-related deaths among children are on the rise in the US, study finds
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Child gun deaths are on the rise in the US.
The New York Times writes about it.
It is generally accepted that the biggest threat to children is accidental injuries due to their good health. Previously, a large proportion of fatalities were traffic accidents.
At the same time, a new study points to changes. According to his data, the death rate among children under the age of 18 in the United States from firearms increased by 87% from 2011 to 2021. And the number of fatalities from road accidents has almost halved.
| Photo: Laurent Hamels/Gettyimages.com |
This discovery once again underscored the truth of other data indicating that firearms are the leading cause of death in Americans under the age of 20. These statistics did not take into account the deaths of premature babies or children with congenital anomalies.
Data from a study in the journal Pediatrics indicates that gunshot wounds killed 2,590 children and adolescents under the age of 18 in 2021, compared to 1,311 in 2011. The researchers also found that drug poisoning has more than doubled.
Dr. Rebekah Mannix, the lead author of the article, says of the great success in protecting children from traffic accidents. It is caused by seat belts, additional seats and airbags in cars. However, according to her, the opposite is true with weapons.
“It’s only getting worse, and more and more children are dying from firearms”she says.
It turned out that the rate of non-fatal injuries among children decreased by more than half – from 11,592 per 100,000 to 5,359. However, the rate of fatal injuries increased from 14.07 to 17.3 per 100,000.
The exception was firearms and drugs, where both fatal and non-fatal injuries increased.
Read also: In Odesa, a 14-year-old schoolgirl died of drug poisoning, a 17-year-old teenager was detained – the police
Dr. Tony Grossi of New Orleans attributes this to the need to help gunshot victims in the first minutes. While the child is taken to the hospital in serious condition with injuries, valuable time is lost. As a result, more children die.
Gross says the firearms can be modified — such as adding trigger locks with fingerprint identification. However, the industry does not want to introduce such safety features. At the same time, there are models with face and fingerprint recognition technology – as, for example, in Biofire.
Another study indicates that state laws can help combat accidental injuries or suicides. Statistics show that more than half of the approximately 45,000 gun deaths in the US are suicides.
In states with the most protective gun safety laws, the suicide rate among children and youth ages 10 to 24 was actually lower in 2022 than it was in 1999, according to the report.
And in states without safe-carry laws or laws that apply only when gun owners carelessly or intentionally give a child a firearm, the youth suicide rate increased by 36%.
Today, more than 4.5 million US children live in homes where at least one gun is loaded.
Earlier we talked about how to understand that a person is capable of committing suicide.
Read also: Let the child “shoot”: why it is important to let the little ones play in the war and when the game should be stopped
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