The tragic headlines are all too common: A toddler got his hands on his mother’s gun and fatally shot his 2-year-old brother in Colorado earlier this month. Two girls caught in the crossfire were wounded in a shooting during a picnic at a Chicago elementary school on Friday. And out of the glare of the headlines, more teens took their own lives.
Now a new report gives the most complete picture yet of the grim toll gunfire takes on American children every year.
Overall, nearly 1,300 children in the U.S. die in shootings each year and another 5,790 survive gunshot wounds — from handguns, rifles and shotguns — according to the study published today in the journal Pediatrics.
The tally makes gunshot wounds the third leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 17 years.
