A mortality analysis by experts from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor reveals that more children and adolescents died due to guns than any other reason in 2020.
According to the study, which is based on current mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns overtook automobile accidents as the leading cause of death in America for those aged 19 and under in 2020, As per an ABC News report.
This is the first time that guns have been identified as the leading cause of death in this age group, according to the study, which was published as a letter to the editor in the New England Journal of Medicine.
According to Jason E. Goldstick, Rebecca M. Cunningham, and Patrick M. Carter, firearm-related deaths from "suicide, homicide, unintentional, and undetermined" elevated at a rate of 29.5 percent among children and adolescents from 2019 to 2020, which is more than two times higher as the general population.
Gun-related Deaths Among Kids And Teens Rapidly Spiked In The Previous Years
Firearm-related deaths were previously ranked second only to car accidents as the main cause of death among young Americans. Per Reuters report, car deaths, on the other hand, have decreased over time, with roughly 3,900 Americans under the age of 19 dying in car accidents in 2020.
Gun deaths ranked second to motor vehicle accidents as the primary cause of fatality among children and teenagers for the last 21 years. But since 2016, the CDC said that the gap between the two categories has been narrowing.
Overdoses and poisonings caused by drugs surged by 83.6 percent between 2019 and 2020, making them the third leading cause of mortality in that age range. According to a separate study published in April, 954 young people perished from overdoses in 2020, compared to 492 in 2019.
Gun violence in the US has increased since the Covid-19 pandemic began in early 2020.
Why Did It Happen?
Between January and April 2021, 7.5 million US individuals - just under 3% of the population - became gun owners for the first time, according to a separate study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in February.
As a result, 11 million people, including five million children, were exposed to household guns.
According to the CDC, the jump in gun deaths in America is mostly attributable to an increase in firearm-related homicides, which recorded a 33.4 percent increase in the crude rate from 2019 to 2020. According to CDC data, firearm-related suicides climbed by 1.1 percent in the United States over that period.
The CDC researchers were unable to specify a cause for the rise in gun deaths, as BBC reported, but they did say that the new data are consistent with previous findings indicating gun violence spiked "during the COVID-19 pandemic."
Researchers noted that "it cannot be assumed" that the gun-related mortality will later regress to pre-pandemic levels.
The researchers advocated additional support for groups and initiatives targeted at reducing community violence, citing the rising number of gun-related deaths as evidence of grave concern.
"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 shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death," the experts stated.
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