Gun Violence More Likely to Cause Death Among US Children Than Car Accidents

The recent shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, is a reminder of the rampant gun violence plaguing the United States.

Former President Barack Obama tweeted, "We are failing our children."

Due to the frequency of school shootings in the past few years, guns are now the leading cause of death for children in the U.S.

This now surpasses the rate at which children and teens are dying from car accidents.

Although the tweet's accuracy is difficult to verify, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that firearms accounted for almost 19% of childhood deaths in ages 1-18 in 2021, with nearly 3,600 children losing their lives in gun-related incidents that year.

According to Snopes, this rate translates to about five children dying for every 100,000 in the United States.

Gun violence becomes the leading cause of death for children and teens

In the United States, no other comparable country reports firearms as a top cause of mortality among children.

Tragically, children in the US are more likely to be killed by guns than in car accidents.

In 2021, firearms were responsible for 19% of all deaths among children and teenagers aged 18 and below.

According to a CNN analysis of school shooting data, the shooting at The Covenant School marks the 16th school shooting in K-12 grades and the deadliest since the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting last year.

The shooting claimed the lives of six people, including three children and three adults.

In 2023, there have been 130 mass shootings so far, the highest recorded number at this point since at least 2013, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further fueled the increase in child and teen mortality, primarily caused by fatal injuries, with firearms accounting for nearly half of the rise in mortality in 2020.

Impact of Gun Violence to survivors

Beyond the physical harm caused by school shootings, researchers have studied their impacts on the growing number of students experiencing them in American schools.

The studies consistently report detrimental effects on mental health, neurological, and physiological mechanisms, education, and economic trajectories that can last for years or even decades.

Survivors of school shootings face not only physical injuries but also the trauma's psychological and emotional aftermath.

The trauma can impact the developing brains of young students and their biological stress systems.

Studies have found that school shootings can have long-lasting effects on the mental health and educational outcomes of surviving youth.

According to Stanford University, a study analyzing the impact of 44 school shootings in the United States between 2008 and 2013 found that antidepressant prescriptions to youth under the age of 20 rose by 21.3 percent after a shooting.

This rise was relative to prescriptions written by providers located 10 to 15 miles away, both before and after the shooting.

The frequent incidents of gun violence and school shootings in the United States are a tragic reminder of the urgent need to address the country's gun laws.

Gun violence has now become the leading cause of death for children in the United States, surpassing car accidents.

The physical, mental, and emotional trauma caused by these incidents is a heavy burden to bear and has long-lasting impacts on young survivors.

Urgent steps are needed to address the issue and prevent such incidents from happening in the future.