More children killed by guns than anything else

Posted April 17, 2023

By Ivan Garz

Staff Reporter

What is now the leading cause of death in the United States for children, surpassing car accidents in late 2022, gun violence ravages this nation and is made possible by easy access to firearms and obvious warning signs from perpetrators being ignored. Gun violence is extremely preventable in this country and when it gets out of control to this extent, we can no longer pretend that it can’t be prevented, although pro-gun lawmakers attempt to make it seem so. Up until now in 2023 there have been 12,358 deaths from gun violence in the United States, according to gunviolencearchive.org, over half of which have been suicides and over 400 which have been accidental. There have been over 160 mass shootings in the U.S. this year so far, in the 106 days since the start of 2023. 

Tennessee passed legislation making it easier to get access to a firearm shortly before the mass shooting at an elementary school in Nashville in which 6 people were killed and the perpetrator used three firearms that were all purchased legally. Shootings don’t happen at this frequency in any other country, it’s utterly senseless to pretend that gun deaths are a non-preventable tragedy. The fear of gun violence has deeply shaped our culture living in the United States, students get startled from hearing a chip bag pop or a door close too loudly from a draft of wind, bulletproof backpacks get sold and students are taught to hide in a darkened classroom in case of an active shooter and not knowing if they’ll live or if their friends and siblings will be alright. 

It is often argued by pro-gun politicians and individuals that a gun itself does not cause violence and destruction, and of course that is true with a nitpicky mentality, however, it is an  irrefutable fact that assault weapons make it much easier for someone intending to harm or kill others on a large scale, malicious intent alone can’t necessarily hurt people, but malice accompanied with access to weapons capable of mass murder and violence has tragic and very preventable consequences. In order to decrease such violence or at least minimize the casualties, these weapons capable of killing or injuring people must be controlled by stricter laws to ensure the safety of those at risk of being victims of gun violence, otherwise as a country we will continue on this dark road of witnessing the horrors of people, many of which are children, dying from weapons that shouldn’t be accessible to begin with, in the places they are meant to be safe, and spinning the roulette wheel of shallow sympathies instead of enacting change.