Research Finds an Alarming Increase in Gun Related Deaths Among Children in America
A new study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that between 1999 and 2017 almost 39,000 children in the United States between the ages of five and eighteen were killed with guns. 61% of the deaths resulted from assault, 32% suicide, 5% accidental, and 2% were undetermined.
Bowdoin.edu: "In 2017 alone, 2,462 school-age children were killed by firearms—a mortality rate that far outnumbered the 144 police officers and approximately 1,000 active duty military who died by gunfire that year."
This study comes on the heels of data published at the end of 2018 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] showing that the overall rate of gun deaths in America had reached its highest rate in more than 20 years.
The Guardian: "The CDC’s Wonder database shows that in 2017, 39,773 people in the US lost their lives at the point of a gun, marking the onward march of firearm fatalities in a country renowned for its lax approach to gun controls. When adjusted for age fluctuations, that represents a total of 12 deaths per 100,000 people – up from 10.1 in 2010 and the highest rate since 1996."
"What that bare statistic represents in terms of human tragedy is most starkly reflected when set alongside those of other countries. According to a recent study from the Jama Network, it compares with rates of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in Japan, 0.3 in the UK, 0.9 in Germany and 2.1 in Canada."
Suicides using guns are one of the main drivers of this increase and they have reached a level that has reduced overall life expectancy in America.
Time: "Of the nearly 40,000 who died by firearms in 2017, 23,854 people, or 60%, committed suicide using a gun. According to CNN, the age-adjusted rate of suicide by gun was highest among white men, at 14 per every 100,000. Overall life expectancy in the U.S. also dropped for the third year in a row in 2017, driven in part by an increase in suicides, which as a whole grew 3.7% between 2016 and 2017."
And, for those who push the false narrative that there is no connection between the availability of guns and gun related deaths, there is this to consider:
The Guardian: "Research by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence underlines that the tragedy of gun violence and suicides is not spread randomly across the country, but is concentrated precisely in those places where gun ownership is most prevalent and gun laws at their loosest. When the fund analysed the new CDC statistics, it discovered the highest rates of gun suicides occurred in three states which also have the greatest gun ownership – Montana (19.4 gun suicides per 100,000), Wyoming (16.6) and Alaska (16.0)."
_JPG.jpg)
.jpg)