Kids and guns: All-American - statistics on children killed with guns

American Demographics, July, 1997 by Matthew Klein

Sometimes it isnt good to be the world leader. American children aged 14 and younger are 16 times more likely to be killed by firearms than are children in 25 other industrialized nations averaged together, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even when the focus shifts from gun-related deaths to all homicides, the U.S. still makes a poor showing. The murder rate for American kids under age 14 is five times the average rate for the other countries.

The numbers stay bleak throughout the teen years and young adulthood. The risk that an American aged 15 to 19 will die from a firearm injury more than doubled between 1985 and 1994. Firearm injuries were the second-leading cause of death for people aged 10 to 24 in 1994. In 1995, 8 percent of American students reported carrying a firearm for fighting or self-defense at least once in the previous 30 days. Thats up from 4 percent in 1990.

Even when guns are factored out, American kids are far more likely to be murdered. The non-firearm murder rate is 1.63 per 100,000 children aged 14 and younger in the U.S., compared with 0.45 abroad. For firearm-related homicides, the rates are 0.94 and 0.06 per 100,000, respectively.

For more information, download a copy of the February 7, 1997, Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, Vol. 46, No. 5, from the CDC Web site: http://www.cdc.govepo/

mmwr/preview/index97.html, or order from the Government Printing Office; (202) 512-1800.