Guns leading cause of death for children and teens for third year in a row

Findings come after four killed in Georgia high school shooting

Gun violence was the leading killer of children and teens across the US for the third year in a row, according to a new Johns Hopkins University analysis.

Guns killed 2,526 children between the ages of 1 and 17, an average of seven youths slain a day, according to an analysis of 2022 data released by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

The problem is even more accurate for children of color. More than half of black teens aged 15 to 17 were killed by a gun in 2022, and Black children and teens overall had a gun homicide rate 18 times that of their white peers.

Black, Hispanic, and Latino youth also had rates of gun suicide multiple times higher than white children.

Overall, between 2013 and 2022, the youth gun rate doubled.

Guns continue to kill U.S. children at alarming levels, with effects felt particularly by Black and Latino youth

The center called for evidence-based solutions like safe gun storage, licensing requirements for private gun sellers, removing guns from at-risk people, investing in community programs, and regulating carrying guns in public.

“The ongoing crisis of gun violence is preventable,” Johns Hopkins researchers wrote in their report. “We must address this crisis through a public health approach pushing for equitable, evidence-based gun violence solutions.”

Shortly after the 2022 analysis was published, the CDC released its 2023 data, which showed little improvement.

The overall number of gun deaths was down by about three percent, but at 46,728, was still the third-highest number ever recorded in the US, and gun deaths remained the leading cause of death for children and teens aged one to 17, a 2,566 increase over 2022.

The data arrives not long after another major school shooting in the U.S.

Earlier this month, Colt Gray, 14, allegedly brought an assault-style rifle to school and killed two students and two teachers, a weapon his father Colin allegedly bought the teen as a Christmas present.

There is no minimum age requirement to possess a rifle under federal and state firearms law in Georgia, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, but individuals must be 18 or older to buy one.

The military-style AR rifle allegedly used at the high school is a high-powered weapon that has been used in shootings across the country, including the recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump. The assault rifle has been used in an estimated 10 of the 17 deadliest mass shootings since 2012.