Kids and Guns: Shootings now the 3rd-leading cause of death for US Children [View all]

[sharedvalues]

I think it's important to talk about this, because a common pro-gun talking point is to deny that guns cause deaths, and to deny that guns cause kids' deaths. Well, we have lots of kids getting shot in the US. Way below other countries that have better gun control.


http://www.newsweek.com/guns-kids-third-leading-cause-death-627209

Few stories are more heartbreaking than those involving children who are injured or killed by gunshots. It isn't hard to find them: In June alone, a 6-year-old accidentally shot and killed a 4-year-old in South Carolina, a father accidentally shot and killed his 9-year-old daughter in Indiana and an 8-year-old Mississippi boy was accidentally shot in the chest. His grandparents drove him to the hospital, but he died 45 minutes later. Sadly, the list of child gun deaths goes on.

Related: Republican praises guns just moments after Virginia shooting

Though we constantly see examples in the news, child gun injuries and deaths may be even more prevalent in the United States than we realized. A study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics showed that an average of 5,790 children in the United States receive emergency room treatment for gun-related injuries each year, and around 21 percent of those injuries are unintentional. The study also found that an average of 1,297 children die annually from gun-related injuries, making guns the third-leading cause of death for children in America (behind illnesses and unintentional injuries like drownings or car crashes). The number is based on data taken from 2012–2014 for children up to the age of 17.

Aha. This is why the GOP and NRA has banned the CDC and government from collecting data on gun violence (because they know what the data will show). That was reversed under Obama, and now the data is showing that guns get people killed - in this case, get kids killed.