Information on Youth & Firearms Violence

The number of children unintentionally shot and killed each year in the United States could fill a commercial airliner. In 2003, 102 children and teens aged 17 years of age or younger were killed by firearms unintentionally—more than eight children every month, or one child every four days. For this age group, in 2003 an additional 805 youth were killed in firearm homicides, and 377 took their own lives in firearm suicides. More than four times this number of children are treated in U.S. emergency rooms each year for non-fatal gunshot wounds. Taken together, these numbers add up to a Columbine massacre every four days for America's youth.