A study released Monday in the journal Pediatrics that looks at the toll of gun injuries and deaths for children.
The study analyzed a national database of patients younger than 20 who were admitted to hospitals in 2009 to provide one of the most comprehensive recent efforts to tally the number of children hurt nationally in gun-related incidents.
The patterns reported in the study will be familiar to regular readers of the Homicide Report. Among the findings:
• Twenty children or adolescents were hospitalized for firearm-related injuries every day in 2009.
• 453 died of their wounds that year.
• Boys represent nearly 90% of the total
• African American males were 10 times more likely to suffer a gun-related injury than white males.
• Blacks ages 15 to 19 were 13 times more likely than their white peers to be injured by gunfire.
• 70% of all black children hospitalized for gun injury (compared with 32% of all white children injured by firearms) were classified as victims of assault.
• Latino children and adolescents were three times likelier than white children to be hospitalized with a firearm-related injury.
The incidents analyzed included accidental shootings and suicides as well as assaults. Read more: Guns sent 20 children to U.S. hospitals every single day, study finds
