Judy: We are not even four
months into this year and it is
already been a deadly one fot
-- for too many children and
teens and 500 have lost their
lives to gun violence.
We look at a sobering new
analysis of related data that
underscores how big a problem we
have.
>> In 2016, researchers at the
university of Michigan found
fire arm related injuries where
the second leading cause of
death among American children,
behind car crashes.
That gap narrowed.
In 2020 gun deaths soared past
motor vehicles to become the
leading cause of death for
1219-year-old -- one to
19-year-olds.
Joining me is Dr. Patrick
Carter, the codirector -- of the
fire on prevention at the
university of Michigan and one
of the authors of that analysis.
Thank you for joining us.
So, let's just talk about these
findings.
As you are running these numbers
that came through the CDC, what
stood out?
We surprised by the increase?
>> I think we were expecting
to see increase because we have
seen a trend in increase since
2013 and the number of firearm
deaths occurring among children
and teenagers.
What stuck out to me was the
magnitude of the increase.
Among the general population we
saw a 14% increase in firearm
deaths nationwide but among
children and teenagers between
one and 19 that rate doubled at
30%.
That is a significant increase
from the prior year.
>> What should we understand
about it?
Because obviously a lot of
people pay attention to -- the
news that get attention, for
example a little league game in
South Carolina were kids were
ducking for cover.
Luckily no one was injured.
Are those the incidents driving
that increase?
>> Those incidents are Horr
fic and they should garner
attention and -- we should
work on trying to prevent those
incidents but they do not
represent the majority of these
types of deaths.
65% of the deaths we see among
children and teenagers are
homicide and about 30% are
suicide.
Those are daily deaths that are
occurring, not due to the mass
shooter or active shooter
events.
>> I hear you're saying teens.
Are we mostly talking about the
older end of that one to 19 year
spectrum?
Or geographically are most of
them occurring in the same
places?
>> What we do know is that they
occur equally in rural, suburban
and urban communities.
In this past year, we saw
increases in all of those
firearm deaths among those
communities.
We know the deaths are different
in those communities.
Among rural and suburban we see
more suicides and unintentional
injuries.
In urban communities we tend to
see more homicides due to
interpersonal violence.
We know they occur at equal
This is really a problem that
affects every American
community.
When we talk about teens, we do
see a greater number of firearm
injuries that occur at that
adolescent age as they start to
get into those teenage years.
Although we still see a fair
number of unintentional injuries
among the younger age group.
>> We mentioned a comparison
with motor vehicle deaths.
It was decades that motor
vehicle crashes were the leading
cause of death, right?
Those have been steadily
declining since 2001.
I guess the question is, how did
we do that?
How did we get those to come
down and why can't we do the
same with firearms?
>> That is a great
question.
What we have been able to do an
motor vehicle crash deaths and
have not been able to do with
firearm deaths.
So, we have seen over the past
half-century that we have been
able to decrease motor vehicle
crash injury and death largely
due to evidence-based research.
We've made cars and roads safer
and change driver behavior
around drinking and driving and
learn to train our teenagers how
to drive better and we know that
is a high risk for them to get
into a crash.
We phased out driving among
elderly drivers who are not
capable of having the skills to
drive.
We've applied evidence-based
research to all angles of this
problem and been able to
decrease the number of people
dying from motor vehicle
crashes.
That is the science.
We can do the same thing with
firearms.
We have not been able to do it
until recently when they started
to fund this research to look at
this problem understand what the
drivers are and also what the
solutions are.
They don't involve taking away
people's guns.
They involve applying science to
consider how we reduce the
potential for harm and allow
people to have legal firearms
and reduce those deaths --
without taking cars off the
road.
We have more people driving
today than we ever have.
>> The numbers are striking, the
headline is stunning and
disturbing.
But this is data from 2020.
Do you have any reason to
believe the numbers have tended
down Simpson?
-- Down since then?
>> I don't.
The data lags behind because it
is death data and we've seen an
increase trend since 2013.
And I expect that, unless we are
able to develop some of the
solutions I am talking about,
we're going to continue see
those nubbers increase.
That's the work we have to do.
>> Dr. Patrick Carter.
From the institute for firearm
injury prevention at the
university of Michigan.
Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you.