Confronting the Firearm Injury Plague

Firearm injuries are an all-too-common way of death for children and youth in the United States. As Fowler et al¹ report in the current issue, firearm injuries are the third leading cause of death for all children aged 1 to 17 years. Although firearm injury mortality rates for these children declined gradually from 2006 to 2013, they have risen again over the past 2 years, now accounting for over 10% of all deaths among these ages in 2014 and 2015.² An even grimmer picture appears if we extend the age range through the teen-aged years to age 19, because firearm injury rates rise steeply in late adolescence; among children and youth aged 1 to 19, firearm injuries accounted for over 14% of all deaths in 2015. Thus, more than 1 out of every 7 children aged 1 to 19 who died of anything died of a gunshot wound....