Guns Now The Leading Cause Of Death In Children And Teens?
New CDC data shows that gun deaths from injuries has now topped the list as the leading cause of death in children and teens.
The 2021-2022 school year shaped up to be an unfortunate, historic year for gun violence on school campuses. Nearly two weeks ago, a gunman gained entry into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and took the lives of 21 people inside. It was the 27th school shooting to occur in 2022 alone. As part of the nation views this startling trend as a reason to seek more gun reform legislation, another alarming trend furthers that notion: gun deaths are now the leading cause of death for children and teens.
This harrowing statistic comes from a research article for The New England Journal of Medicine. Each year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases data on the cause of death for children aged 0-19 years old. Motor vehicle injuries had been the leading cause of death for more than 60 years. But now, gun deaths have surpassed that to become the number one cause of death, according to their most recent study from 2020.
Gun deaths have been rising in America for more than two decades. From 2000 and 2020, the number of firearm-related deaths among children, adolescents, and young adults increased from 6998 to 10,186. Furthermore, the most recent data depicts a nearly 30% increase in firearms deaths among children in just one year. To put this data into perspective, with the previous cause of death, motor vehicles, and how prevention compares, the article looks at motor vehicle safety measures over the last few decades which were attributed to the decrease in vehicle-related deaths.
There have been significant efforts from federal funding towards research on motor vehicle crashes through the years. Because of this, lawmakers and researchers have been better equipped to understand and pass laws that have prevented traffic-related injuries. Car updates, safety laws, and child restraints like car seats and boosters are examples of this. But on the contrary, little research has gone to gun deaths, and even less to reform measures.
The scholarly article claims that very little research has gone into the firearm industry over the last few decades. This is in part due to efforts from the National Rifle Association (NRA) to block these initiatives. The 1996 Dickey Amendment made this possible when it prohibited the CDC from researching gun-related deaths.
Similarly, the rate at which guns have become more accessible to the public, and even younger adults is correlated to this rise in gun deaths. The sale of more lethal assault rifles has risen. And furthermore, the article claims there has been little to no effort to market “smart guns” said to be safer for ownership with children in the household.
Despite this information, there is still a large portion of Americans who are strictly against any form of gun reform or more restrictions. Likewise, conservative sites like The Post Millennial have slammed the media’s representation of the CDC findings. They claim that the statistics are misleading because the data showing gun-related deaths were specifically increased as the leading cause for the age group of 18 and 19-year-olds.
Despite the specific details within these new reports, there is no denying the fact that gun-related deaths have perpetually increased over time in America. But whether or not that information calls for an increase in laws prohibiting the sale of certain guns is a touchy, subjective matter to many. There will always be an argument for and against gun control, but something surely needs to be done to reverse this startling trend.
