Guns Became Leading Cause of Death for Children and Teens in 2020
Long-time readers here might recall I was once very deeply involved with guns as a part of self-defense. I was an NRA credentialed instructor, a shareholder/director in a shooting range and an advocate for the cause. I mention this because I don’t know how else to explain the extent of my heartache at these statistics.
A lot has got to change in the political and practical side of the gun world.
Guns became the leading cause of death among children and teens in 2020, killing more people ages 1 to 19 in the U.S. than vehicle crashes, drugs overdoses or cancer.
More than 4,300 died of firearm-related injuries that year — a 29 percent increase from 2019 — according to a research letter published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The letter analyzed decades of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“In the last 40 years, and almost certainly before that, this is the first time that firearm injuries have surpassed motor vehicle crashes among kids,” said a co-author of the letter, Jason Goldstick, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan.
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