Stop 2

Children & Guns: A Lethal Combination

Every day in America, more than 10 young people aged 19 and under are killed in gun homicides, suicides and unintentional shootings.[1] Many more are wounded. The scourge of gun violence frequently attacks the most helpless members of our society - our children.

Consider these facts...

  • In 1998, 2,215 children and teenagers were murdered with guns, 1,241 committed suicide with guns, and 336 died in unintentional shootings. A total of 3,792 young people were killed by firearms.[2]

  • Each year during 1993 through 1997, an average of 1,621 murderers who had not reached their 18th birthdays took someone's life with a gun.[3]

  • In 1999, 82% of murder victims aged 13 to 19 years old were killed with a firearm.[4]

  • During 1998, 52% of all murders of those under age 18 involved firearms. In 1986, guns were involved in 38% of such offenses.[5]

  • In 1995, 1 in 12 (8.3%) high school students reported having carried a gun for fighting or self-defense at least once in the last 30 days.[6]

Gun violence plagues our youth...it is the epidemic of the 1990's...

  • In 1995, gunshot wounds are the second leading cause of death for all teenagers 10-19.[7]

  • In 1997, firearm homicide was the leading cause of death for Blacks aged 15-24.[8]

  • According to a February 1997 report by the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of firearm death of children 0 to 14 years old is nearly twelve times higher in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized countries combined.[9]

  • For every child killed by a gun, four are wounded.[10]

  • From 1984 to 1994, the firearm homicide death rate for 15-19 year olds increased 222 percent while the non-firearm homicide death rate decreased 12.8 percent.[11]

  • "The firearm injury epidemic, due largely to handgun injuries, is ten times larger than the polio epidemic of the first half of this century."[12]

Updated 1/16/01

Notes:

  1. Unpublished data from the Vital Statistics System, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, 2000.
  2. ibid.
  3. Supplemental Homicide Data from the FBI.
  4. FBI Uniform Crime Report, 1999, table 2.11, p.18
  5. ibid.
  6. Kannl, Warren CW, Harris WA, et al. Youth risk behavior surveillance-United States, 1993. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control And Prevention. 1995;44:1-56
  7. Health – United States 1996-97 and Injury Chartbook. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. July 1997.
  8. National Vital Statistics Reports. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, June 30, 1999. Vol. 47, No. 19.
  9. "Firearm-Related Death in 26 Industrialized Countries", Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997, 46(5):101-105.
  10. Annest, JL, et.al. "National estimates of nonfatal firearm-related injuries: beyond the tip of the iceberg," Journal of the American Medical Association, 1995, 273:1749-1754
  11. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, unpublished data from the Vital Statistics System, 1997.
  12. Christoffel, Katherine Kaufer, "Handguns and the Environments of Children", Children's Environments, 12(1), 1995, p. 42.