If this New England Journal of Medicine article on juvenile mortality hasn’t already received some attention, I expect it to soon. The TL;DR version is illustrated by the graph at the top of this post: the firearm-related mortality rate for children and adolescents exceeded that of motor vehicle accidents for the first time in 2020. The more detailed analysis:
tells us that, although there were increases for all demographic groups other than Asians and Pacific Islanders and types of firearm-related mortality, the greater part of the increase was due to a sharp increase in homicides of black and Hispanic children and adolescents. I would further speculate that gang activity is a contributing factor.
I would welcome proposals for reducing the firearm-related mortality among black and Hispanic children and adolescents but, sadly, I suspect much of the attention will be focused on suicides and accidental death.
There are too many guns to make a huge difference. Maybe we can get it back down levels we had 10 years ago but I would view those as record lows.
Steve
Enacting laws even laws that are actually enforced which aren’t the same thing will only reduce deaths due to firearms possessed legally. Since most of the firearms used in crimes aren’t owned legally, what good will more laws (particularly those that aren’t enforced) do?