Gun Deaths Among Kids Have Surged: Report

The number of U.S. children and teens killed by gunfire jumped by 50% in 2 years, researchers reported.

Gun deaths among individuals under age 18 rose from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021, according to an analysis of CDC data by the Pew Research Center.

In addition, the gun death rate among children and teens, which adjusts for changes in the U.S. population, saw a 46% increase, from 2.4 deaths per 100,000 minors in 2019 to 3.5 per 100,000 in 2021.

The report highlighted that both the total number and the rate of gun deaths in 2021 were higher than any previous year dating back to 1999, the earliest year for which CDC data on gun deaths in children and teens are available.

"[It] correlates with what we're seeing in the emergency department [ED], in terms of increasing amounts of gun injuries and deaths related to younger and younger people," Christopher Colwell, MD, chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, told MedPage Today. "We shouldn't be surprised at the increase in this, given the availability of guns and the challenges we're having with behavioral mental health issues."

Last year, an analysis of CDC data published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that gun-related deaths had become the leading cause of mortality among youths.

"The rise in gun deaths among children and teens is part of a broader recent increase in firearm deaths among Americans overall," John Gramlich, an associate director at the Pew Research Center, wrote in the analysis. "In 2021, there were 48,830 gun deaths among Americans of all ages -- by far the highest yearly total on record and up 23% from the 39,707 recorded in 2019, before the pandemic."

Brian Williams, MD, a trauma and acute care surgeon in Dallas, noted that the majority of these deaths were homicides or suicides.

"People may have this perception that the greatest threat is from mass shootings, but it really is from other forms of gun violence," Williams, a former Congressional health policy advisor, told MedPage Today. "The discussion about gun violence is really driven by mass shootings that dominate the news cycles, but those account for less than a percent of annual gun deaths."

Colwell, who responded to the scene at the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, agreed that the conversation around gun deaths tends to focus on mass shootings, but the reality of this issue is very different in most communities around the country.

Colwell also noted that while this increase occurred during the pandemic, that might only be part of the story behind why gun deaths in children and teens has risen over the years.

"What strikes me most is that the situation we were in 1999, where there was a federal assault weapons ban among other [methods] that regulated gun use, here we are now 24 years later in a worse situation from a gun access standpoint than we ever were," Colwell said.

The report noted that gun deaths among children and teens included homicides, suicides, accidents, and any category where a firearm is listed on a death certificate as the underlying cause of death, but it did not include deaths where a firearm was listed as a contributing cause of death.

The Pew report also included CDC estimates of gun-related injuries among children and teens, showing more than 11,000 ED visits for gun shots in 2020.

Boys (83% of all gun deaths among children and teens), individuals ages 12-17 years (86%), and Black children and teens (46%) were all more likely to die from gun violence, according to the report. Black children and teens were roughly five times as likely as white children and teens to die by gunfire. The gun death rate among Black children and teens was 11.8 per 100,000 in 2021 versus 2.3 per 100,000 among white children and teens.

"As a nation, we have to do better to serve our children and teens," Williams said. "This number of gun deaths, and the fact that it's increasing at such a rate in such a short period of time, is really a failure on our part to protect those that don't have a voice in the policy process."

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the change to Williams' affiliation.

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