Gun deaths among kids rose 50%

Gun deaths among U.S. kids rose 50% from 2019 to 2021 | Pew Research Center

A discussion on gun deaths among children under 18 with friends last night promoted this search, and as I suspected, by far this is a young male problem. The Nashville Christian school case is one of the few I can remember where a female was the shooter, and we still haven't learned if she was on the testosterone treatment because transgenderism has become such a political bombshell. One other I remember from maybe 15 years ago was a young woman killing her dissertation committee.

Quotes from the Pew report:

"Boys, for example, accounted for 83% of all gun deaths among children and teens in 2021. Girls accounted for 17%."

"Those ages 12 to 17 accounted for 86% of all gun deaths among children and teens in 2021, while those 6 to 11 accounted for 7% of the total, as did those 5 and under."

"In 2021, 46% of all gun deaths among children and teens involved Black victims, even though only 14% of the U.S. under-18 population that year was Black. Much smaller shares of gun deaths among children and teens in 2021 involved White (32%), Hispanic (17%) and Asian (1%) victims."

(Note, only statistics for Hispanic children reflect % of population.)

"In 2021, a large majority of gun deaths involving Black children and teens (84%) were homicides, while 9% were suicides. Among White children and teens, by contrast, the majority of gun deaths (66%) were suicides, while a much smaller share (24%) were homicides."

Suicides among white Americans are always at a higher percentage than other groups--I believe the highest rate of suicides is for white males over 85 and the next highest is the 74-85 group. This is a tragedy our media (and society) pay little attention to.

Also, as noted in the URL, the pandemic lockdown contributed to more than just lost years of schooling. For all we hear about school shootings, schools are still the safest place for children to be. For far too many their own homes and neighborhoods are not healthy places. Yet our government's--from federal to local--poorly conceived lust for power to having everyone be vaccinated and isolated instead of just the vulnerable and elderly has led to a 50% rise in childhood gun deaths, many suicides.

In my opinion, and my Christian belief, having mothers demand the right to kill their own children up through the 9th month of pregnancy (and beyond according to a new law proposed in New York) has not set us up with a good foundation for respecting the lives of children.

The statistics I mentioned in our discussion for homicides of children under 5 comes from a government report; but all homicides, even those for children, dropped drastically after the 1994 Omnibus Crime Bill, now much maligned by liberals. Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 (ojp.gov)