Guns now leading cause of death for American children, CDC says

Firearms are the leading cause of death for American children, according to recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 5 deaths per 100,000 Americans between the ages of 1 and 19 were due to guns in 2020, the most recent year for which the CDC has data.

That number represents a nearly 30% increase in firearms deaths among children over 2019, according to an analysis of the data published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Gun-related deaths now outpace motor vehicle deaths as the leading cause of childhood mortality.

“Although the new data are consistent with other evidence that firearm violence has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, the reasons for the increase are unclear, and it cannot be assumed that firearm-related mortality will later revert to pre-pandemic levels,” researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor wrote.

“Regardless, the increasing firearm-related mortality reflects a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death.”

CDC data shows 4,368 kids died from gunshot wounds in the US in 2020. Of those, 2,811 were considered homicides, 1,293 were suicides.

An additional 149 were listed as “unintentional” deaths, and 25 were classified as “legal interventions.” Ninety of the deaths could not be classified due to a lack of information.