Gun Violence Affecting Kids Soars During COVID-19 Pandemic

Children’s Defense Fund said children and teenagers in the United States are 15 times more likely to die from a gunshot than their peers in 31 other high-income nations combined.

The situation has worsened as a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, the nonprofit organization explained.

According to the Gun Violence Archive (via USA Today), last year was the worst year for gun violence in the United States in at least two decades.

More than 5,100 children under the age of 18 were shot in 2020, more than 1,000 more than at any time since the archive began in 2014, and more than 1,300 died. In comparison to the previous year, the number of children shot and killed rose by more than a third.

The number of deaths among the youngest children increased the most. In 2020, over 300 children aged 11 and under died, a 50 percent rise from the previous year.

KILLEEN, TX – MARCH 24: Demonstrators participate in a March for Our Lives rally and march on March 24, 2018 in Killeen, Texas. More than 800 March for Our Lives events, organized by survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting on February 14 that left 17 dead, are taking place around the world to call for legislative action to address school safety and gun violence. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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Gun Violence Increased This Year Vs. 2020

This year seems to be much worse. According to the archive, firearm deaths were up 13% in early September. More children and teenagers had been shot than at the same period the previous year.

According to public health experts, violence interrupters, and academics, the increase is attributable to a slew of variables worsened by the epidemic. It resulted in increased instances of accidental shootings, suicides, and murders, with children caught in the middle.

Communities in some of the regions most hit by gun violence are dealing with the aftermath of the uptick in violence and asking for investments in their children to break the pattern.

According to a USA TODAY (via Yahoo! News), a person under 18 was shot in more than 1,000 U.S. towns and counties in 2020. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of children shot increased by a double-digit proportion in more over half of the country’s 50 most populated cities.

According to the statistics from the archive, at least 50, 30, and 25 children under the age of 18 died as a result of gun violence in the cities of Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia, respectively, last year.

According to the archive’s statistics, 250 children were wounded in Chicago, 130 in Philadelphia, and almost 90 in St. Louis — dozens more than each city recorded the year before.

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