(Reuters) – Child gun deaths in the United States have reached an all-time high, as per a newly published study by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s mortality database, the study, which was released on Monday in the AAP’s journal Pediatrics, discovered that in 2021, the latest year for which data was available, 4,752 children perished due to gun-related injuries. This number is an increase from 4,368 in 2020 and 3,390 in 2019.
Since 2020, gun violence has been the leading cause of death for children in the United States.
The release of this study coincided with a special session on public safety conducted by Tennessee lawmakers. This session was prompted by a Nashville school shooting earlier this year, which resulted in the loss of three children and three teachers.
Annie Andrews, a pediatrician from South Carolina specializing in gun violence prevention, who was not involved in the study, remarked, “When I became a doctor, I never anticipated that I would be treating so many children with gunshot wounds.”
She added, “But the reality is that in pediatric intensive care units across the country, there are children suffering from firearm injuries.”
According to the study, approximately 67% of firearm homicides were Black children, while approximately 78% of gun-assisted suicides were white children.
Iman Omer, a junior at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and an advocate against gun violence with Students Demand Action, expressed her devastation at the study’s findings, although she found them unsurprising.
As Omer made her way to the state’s capitol on Tuesday to join protesters demanding stricter gun laws, she lamented, “Every year, I know that 128 children and teenagers in Tennessee die due to guns.”
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who personally knew two of the teachers killed in the Nashville shooting, urged lawmakers in the special session to strengthen red flag laws, which aim to prevent individuals deemed threatening from accessing firearms. However, he faced opposition from fellow Republicans, who hold the majority in the statehouse.
In response to this, the Tennessee Firearms Association released a statement on Tuesday expressing their concern, stating, “While some Republican legislators have declared that no Red Flag laws will pass, far fewer have indicated that no laws impinging on the rights protected by the 2nd Amendment would pass.”
(Reporting by Rachel Nostrant; Editing by Donna Bryson; and Alistair Bell)
Credit: The Star : News Feed
