US children and teenagers are the most common deaths from guns
Created: 04/21/2022, 18:16
By: Stella Henrich
US study proves: More and more children and teenagers up to the age of 19 are being killed by guns in the USA.
The leading cause of death to date has been traffic accidents.
Munich – More than 4,300 young people up to the age of 19 died from firearms in the USA in 2020 – for example in homicides and accidental killings, researchers from the University of Michigan based in Ann Arbor report in the “New England Journal of Medicine”.
According to dpa
, the authors analyzed
data from the US health authority CDC for the age group from 1 to 19 years.
Girls in a role-playing game about violence among young people.
(symbol photo) © momentphoto/imago
Furthermore, the study's authors - Jason Goldstick, Patrick Carter and Rebecca Cunningham - calculated that gun deaths increased by 29 percent from 2019 to 2020 in this age group.
"The rising rate of fatal firearm incidents is a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youngest population from a preventable cause of death,"
dpa quoted scientist
Jason Goldstick as saying.
US youth: deaths from traffic accidents down
Traffic accidents have long been by far the leading cause of death among children and young people, says Patrick Carter, another author of the US study.
"But as vehicles and their drivers have become safer, these types of deaths have decreased dramatically over the past 20 years."
That so many people die from gun violence every day in America is a blot on the character of our nation.”
Joe Biden, US President
Around 3,900 children and young people lost their lives in traffic accidents during the reporting period.
The third most common cause of death was poisoning and drug overdoses: more than 1,700 young people died from them.
That means an increase of more than 83 percent compared to the previous year.
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly spoken out in favor of tightening gun laws in the United States.
And calls on Congress to enact proven measures to reduce gun violence.
(sth with dpa)
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