Guns have become the leading cause of death among young Americans, surpassing traffic accidents, according to a recent study by health authorities that shows a sharp rise in shooting homicides in the United States, such as the Texas school shooting. which killed 19 schoolchildren on Tuesday.
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In 2020, 4,368 children and adolescents up to the age of 19 died from firearm injuries, a rate of 5.4 per 100,000 people in this population, according to a table published by the Centers for Prevention and Disease Control (CDC).
Homicides account for almost two-thirds of these deaths.
In comparison, 4,036 deaths were attributed to road accidents in this age category.
The gap has gradually narrowed with the decline in traffic accidents due to road safety improvement measures over the years, while firearm deaths have increased.
The two curves crossed in 2020, the latest statistics available, and the results were analyzed in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) last week.
According to the authors of this letter, the new data coincides with other studies on an increase in gun violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. The reasons for this increase are manifold, but “it cannot be assumed that it will return to pre-pandemic levels,” they write.
The CDC table shows that almost 30% of deaths were suicides, with just over 3% of deaths accidental and the causes being undetermined for 2% of cases. A small number of these are referred to as “legal intervention”, meaning deaths that occur during interactions with law enforcement.
Young African Americans are disproportionately victimized by firearms, with four times the risk of being shot dead, compared to young white people, for whom road accidents pose a greater threat.
The second most affected group is the Native Americans.
Men are also six times more likely to die from a gun than women.
Geographically, the rate of gun death is highest in the US capital Washington, followed by Louisiana and Alaska.
These figures underscore that while mass shootings like the one in Uvalde, Texas cause public dread, they represent only a small fraction of youth gun deaths.
