By Suzy Khimm—
NBC News
At least 157 people were killed and 270 injured in unintentional shootings by minors in 2023, according to Everytown, a group that advocates for greater gun safety.
The juveniles who pulled the trigger were mostly teenagers ages 14 to 17, or children ages 5 and younger, according to Everytown data, compiled from media reports.
In about half of the incidents, minors
shot themselves
.
In the other half, another person was injured or killed, almost in all cases a minor.
“The victim is usually a sibling, cousin or friend,” explained Sarah Burd-Sharps, research director at Everytown.
“That has left multiple families in pain and regret.”
At least 157 people were killed and 270 injured in unintentional shootings by minors in 2023. NBC News/Getty Images
Everytown said federal and state authorities must do more to track and provide public data on these types of incidents to help identify the best way to prevent them.
“A juvenile picks up a loaded gun and shoots himself or another person almost once a day,” Burd-Sharps said.
“It is something that can be prevented.”
Unintentional shooting victims
The dead include a 2-year-old girl from Indiana who shot herself with a gun she found in her home, and an 8-year-old boy from Alabama who hurt himself with a firearm stolen from his mother's car.
In Florida, a 12-year-old boy was killed and a 15-year-old boy was injured by a 14-year-old boy who was playing with a gun he didn't know was unloaded, according to police.
Last year saw the highest number of unintentional shootings by children under 18 that Everytown has recorded since it began tracking in 2015: 411 incidents resulted in injuries or deaths, some with multiple victims.
Everytown's effort is due, in part, to a lack of comprehensive national data on unintentional shootings, according to the group, co-founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides extensive data on injuries and deaths in unintentional shootings, but it is limited and can take years to be published.
Some states had not begun providing detailed reports on these incidents to the federal government until recently.
And the information on injuries is much less complete than that on deaths, because there is less documentation.
“There is no established system for knowing the circumstances” of gun injuries, said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, dedicated to injury prevention.
“No one is even close to doing it.”
Although the federal government collects much more detailed information about fatal shootings, access to that data is restricted to universities and other research institutions.
[A shooting leaves two dead and five injured in Washington DC]
The CDC said in a statement that it tracks and reports the age of the shooters in all firearm deaths, but not in all injuries, since that information is not usually available.
“A trauma that I wouldn't wish on anyone”
Everytown's count of unintentional shootings based on media accounts is also not exhaustive, as not all events receive news coverage, especially those in which no one is killed, and initial reports of an incident can be incomplete.
According to the CDC's limited data, the overall rate of deaths from unintentional shootings, both among children and adults, has declined since the 1990s.
But firearms remain one of the leading causes of accidental child deaths.
According to a 2015 survey, an estimated 4.6 million American children lived in households with at least one loaded and unlocked firearm, and gun sales have increased since then.
JaJuan McDowell, 14, died in 2016 from an unintentional shooting by another teenager who was playing with a gun kept in a dresser drawer.
Eight years later, JaJuan's mother, Julvonnia McDowell, still catches herself looking in the rearview mirror while driving and remembers that she will never see her son sitting in the back seat again.
“When guns are not stored properly, it causes pain and trauma that I wouldn't wish on anyone,” said McDowell, who encourages others to talk about safely storing firearms.
“This is an issue that should concern us all,” McDowell said.
“Whether it's your gun or not, believe me: it could be your son.”