NNPA Columnist Marian Wright Edelman
I’m deeply disturbed that after a decade of decline, the number of firearm deaths among children and youth has increased for the second year in a row.
Our 2009 “Protect Children, Not Guns” report released in September reveals that almost nine children and teens die from gunfire every day – one child death every two hours and 45 minutes.
The report, based on the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), states that 3,184 children and teens died from gunfire in 2006, a six percent increase over 2005. A total of 17,451 were victims of non-fatal firearms injuries, a seven percent increase from the previous year.
Americans possess more than 270 million privately owned firearms – the equivalent of nine guns for every 10 men, women and children.
Among the young people killed by firearms, 2,225 were homicide victims, 763 committed suicide and 196 died in accidental or undetermined circumstances. The overwhelming majority, nearly 90 percent, were boys.
More preschoolers – 63 – were killed by firearms than law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty (48).
The death toll among Black children is growing at an alarming rate. Black males ages 15 to 19 are almost five times as likely as their white peers and more than twice as likely as their Hispanic peers to be killed by a firearm.
Gun violence is so pervasive in some black communities that it constitutes a serious health risk. It’s come to the point where many of the cases of post-traumatic stress disorder in black neighborhoods are not only of veterans returning from war zones but also include children whose goals are merely to walk to the corner store in safety.
John C. Raphael Jr., pastor of a Baptist church in New Orleans, says for every murder of a young man, he sees two potential killings that may follow. Street associates of the victim may exact revenge on the presumed killer, or they may kill a friend of the victim who witnessed the murder even if he didn’t talk to police. He explains that many young people have become numb to the killings that occur around them.
Gun shows are a huge market for the sale of guns by vendors with or without federal firearms licenses. Ten years ago, the two teenaged shooters who killed 12 fellow students and a teacher at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999 got part of their arsenal illegally through a gun show. Congress must pass legislation to close the gun show loophole and strengthen provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act requiring a National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Marian Wright Edelman is president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.