1,300 children die of gunshots every year in U.S., study reports

On Thursday, April 20, 2017 Family and friends turned out for a vigil for Juan Borja, an eighth-grade student at Freeport Intermediate School who was shot and killed Wednesday at a Freeport park. Police have arrested a 14-year-old in connection with the fatal shooting. less On Thursday, April 20, 2017 Family and friends turned out for a vigil for Juan Borja, an eighth-grade student at Freeport Intermediate School who was shot and killed Wednesday at a Freeport park. Police have ... more Photo: Mark Mulligan | Houston Chronicle Photo: Mark Mulligan | Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close 1,300 children die of gunshots every year in U.S., study reports 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

An average of 19 children suffer gunshot wounds every day in the United States, according to a new public health study that culled several national databases to tally cases from 2002 to 2014. Nearly 1,300 die each year.

The unusually detailed look offers some good news about firearms injuries — such as a steady decline in accidental shooting deaths — but also finds that the U.S. accounts for more than nine of every 10 firearm deaths among children under 14 in high-income countries worldwide.

Firearms are the No. 2 cause of injury-related death among American children, second only to car crashes.

“It’s a very comprehensive report,” said Dr. David Wesson, Texas Children’s Hospital’s associate surgeon-in-chief for academic affairs. “It’s got information about pretty much all types of firearms-related injuries; it also has information about nonfatal firearms injuries.”

For Wesson, who was not involved in the study that was published in the June edition of the medical journal Pediatrics, the data offers insights that can help prevent such injuries, which are often so severe in children’s small bodies that trauma surgeons like him can’t save the victims.

“If you have a gunshot wound to the head ... there’s really not much we can do,” he said. “So injury prevention is something I think about a lot.”

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On average, 1,297 children died from a firearm-related injury each year from 2012 to 2014, the study reports. A little more 50 percent were homicides, about 40 percent were suicides and 6 percent were unintentional. Nearly 6,000 children per year were wounded but survived.

Fatal firearm injury rates by intent and year, children aged 0 to...

The authors — four researchers with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control or Prevention and one University of Texas at Austin sociologist — report some good news: Intentional shooting deaths have become steadily less common since a peak in 2007, when 1.4 children out of every 100,000 died in shooting homicides each year. That rate declined by 36 percent to 0.9 children per 100,000 in 2014.

Eleven states in the South and Midwest had significantly higher rates of child shooting homicides. The two highest were Louisiana and Illinois. Chicago especially has suffered from frequent shootings in recent years.

Children younger than 13 who died by firearm homicide often were killed during conflict between family members or a relative's romantic partner, according to the authors.

"This highlights how children can be caught in the crossfire in cases of domestic violence and points to the importance of addressing the intersection of these forms of violence," said Katherine Fowler, a lead researcher for the study.

Firearm death rates among children 0 to 17, 2010–2014. (Courtesy...

Data drawn from three national reporting systems revealed that, while children generally have lower suicide rates than other age groups, “Some of the steepest increases from 1999 to 2014 have been found among children 10 to 14 years of age,” according to the study.

Since 2007 alone, firearm suicides among children ages 10 to 17 have increased by 60 percent, Fowler added in an email. Suicide rates were highest in a few large, rural states: Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

Detailed analysis found that the most common circumstances for a child or teen’s suicide included a crisis, a relationship problem or an issue with a romantic partner.

The study also found that more than a quarter of children who took their own lives had told someone about their intent before doing it, suggesting more lives might be saved by interventions.

The researchers found an average of 82 unintentional shooting deaths per year from 2012 to 2014 — though the real number may be much higher, according to research by the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety. The majority of those accidents happened while children were playing with guns or showing them to other kids, the study said.

“Previous research shows that children are curious about firearms and will touch a firearm even when instructed not to do so, which points to the importance of adult supervision and the need to store firearms safely and out of the reach of children,” the authors wrote.

For parents who want a gun handy for self-protection, safety instructors suggest keeping one gun nearby in a fingerprint-activated safe and locking the rest in a complex gun safe.

Ken Stonebraker, a gun safety instructor in Dallas, told the Chronicle last year that hiding a gun or keeping it out of reach is not enough. For parents who want a gun handy in case of intruders, he suggested following his example: Keep one gun nearby in a fingerprint-activated safe and lock the rest in a complex gun safe.

Paul Slogan, an employee at Lone Star Gun Safes in Houston, said last year that fingerprint-activated safes are more secure. However, he said, "with kids, anything's better than nothing." A simple gun lock, a cable that runs through the chamber and magazine, costs less than $20. A trigger lock's price tag is about $10.

Wesson said the study also provides new levels of detail about nonfatal shootings, which get much less attention.

Researchers found an average of 5,790 U.S. children survived gunshot wounds each year, based on data from emergency-department reporting databases and elsewhere. Out of every 100 injuries, about 70 were assaults, 20 were accidents and three were intentionally self-inflicted.

Houston's new police chief, Art Acevedo, has instructed his department's detectives to investigate such nonfatal shootings as if they were homicides, in an effort to catch violent offenders before they kill someone.

READ MORE: Houston's police chief tells detectives to focus more on nonfatal shootings

Wesson said the report came from top-notch researchers whose work he considers credible. The study has attracted widespread media coverage.

However, that coverage led to the discovery that the report's first sentence misinterpreted an ambiguously phrased statistic from another study, claiming that evidence showed "4.2 percent of children aged 0 to 17 in the United States have witnessed a shooting in the past year."

That statement misinterpreted the original study it cited, the editor of the Dallas Morning News wrote after that paper published Washington Post story about the study. That data point came from a question parents were asked in a survey: "At any time in (your child's/your) life, (was your child/were you) in any place in real life where (he/she/you) could see or hear people being shot, bombs going off, or street riots?"

The authors of that earlier report "caused confusion by mislabeling a complicated stat," editor Mike Wilson wrote. "The CDC-UT researchers should have found the information suspect. The Washington Post should have asked more questions about that line from the CDC-UT study."