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Between 2019-2021, gun deaths among young Americans rose 50% and surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for the first time.

Guns and Kids Dying

Guns are the biggest killers of American children and are tied to an unprecedented rise in suicides and homicides among this generation, according to new data that paints a damming portrait of childhood mortality in the US.

Drugs are now the third leading cause of death, according to the most recent figures.

"Put in plain terms, it basically means the probability of young people reaching age 20 is now decreasing," said Steven H. Woolf, a professor of Family Medicine and Population Health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. "We're now losing our most cherished population."

Woolf is the author of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showing that in addition to guns, deaths among adolescents from drug poisoning rose 94% in 2020. In 2021, 77% of all teen overdose deaths involved fentanyl.

Speaking during Ethnic Media Services' weekly news briefing last week, Woolf stressed that death rates among infants, children, and teenagers in most industrialized countries have been falling for many years. But in the US, pediatric success in treating childhood leukemia and curing birth defects has been offset by deaths from guns and drugs.

Dr. Steven H. Woolf, MD, MPH, Professor of Family Medicine and Population Health at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, discusses one of the less considered impacts of gun violence – the diminishing likelihood that a child will reach adulthood.

Rise in gun deaths

"This data was so striking to us and is obviously a trend," said Kim Parker, director of Social and Demographic trends at Pew Research Center. Pew conducted a national survey last fall looking at some of the most pressing concerns currently impacting parents and kids.

Mental health topped the list. Pew asked a very large sample of parents, broken down by racial and ethnic groups, how worried they were about their children getting shot.

"Place and setting really matter," Parker said.

It turns out parents living in urban areas were significantly more likely to express a high level of concern about their children or child being shot than parents in rural or suburban areas.

Government figures show an overall increase in gun deaths of 23%, but the rate is twice that for young Americans. In 2021, for this age group, 60% of gun deaths in the US were homicides, whereas 32% were suicides, says Parker.

Homicide is the leading type of gun death among children, regardless of the age of the child. Most gun deaths involving Black children in 2021 were homicides, whereas most gun deaths involving Asian and white children were suicides.

Mass killings continue to make headlines about once a week in the US, including the recent shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, where state lawmakers expelled two Black legislators after they joined in protests calling for tighter gun control. The two lawmakers were later reinstated. But the incident highlighted the struggle gun-control advocates face in changing America's lax gun laws.

Still, Woolf says school shootings do not account for the largest proportion of deaths among young people, which are "occurring day by day."