It’s a sad truth: 9,000 children die in this country each year. Suffocation, drowning, motor vehicle accidents–all of these contribute to the annual toll. Disease, too, takes a number of young lives.
About 500 of these deaths are cause by injuries sustained from a gunshot wound.
Those 500 lives may seem insignificant when looking at the big picture. Yet, each and every one of those deaths were preventable, and that is what makes the number so staggering and unacceptable.
Without each bullet wound, without those guns in the wrong hands, lives would never have been cut short.
The number of children dead each year because of firearms in this country is astounding, depressing, and incredibly embarrassing. But, most importantly, it is changeable.
The rate of in-hospital deaths of adolescents and children from gun wounds has gone up over 60 percent, according to a study done by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
“[H]handguns account for the majority of childhood gunshot wounds, and this number appears to be increasing over the last decade,” said the lead author of the study, Dr. Arin L. Madenci.
“Further, states with higher percentages of household firearm ownership also tended to have higher proportions of childhood gunshot wounds, especially those occurring in the home,” said Madenci.
Having a gun in the house greatly heightens (although it does not ensure) the chance of injury or death of a child.
Madenci and his colleagues collected data from 36 million children and pediatric hospitals around the country in order to assemble their data. The numbers jumped dramatically during their research period, from 1997 to 2009.
In an article from Oct. 27 for NBC News, journalist Bill Briggs compiled interviews from families that had experienced the dangers of household gun ownership.
“Among those victims may have been 3 year-old Will McAnaul, who died on July 21, 2009 in Dayton, Ohio,” said Briggs. McAnaul, “a preschooler, had picked up his father’s loaded weapon and shot himself in the face.”
Four years after her son’s death, Patcine McAnaul, Will’s mother, spoke about losing her son: “It’s not like your child died of cancer, or they died because of a drunk driver. This is a situation where people can point their finger at you. Part of you can’t blame them. And another part of you is like, ‘That’s not fair. We’re amazing parents.’”
Mrs. McAnaul said that although “[y]ou can’t blame someone for something like that, someone must be at fault.”
McAnaul is right to feel that her situation is different. Her son did not die because of an illness or injury–something that was beyond her and her husband’s control. Will McAnaul is no longer alive because there was a gun in his house within his reach.
I clearly do not preach recreational gun use, or even ownership. However, I cannot tell others to get rid of their firearms. In fact, the Second Amendment forays me from doing so.
There are organizations that provide information on gun control and gun safety, such as Common Sense about Kids and Guns, a group that is “dedicated to providing all adults with the necessary information to empower them to protect their children.”
They provide specific instructions on how to deal with firearms in a house with children, giving instructions like, “unload it and lock it up,” “lock ammunition separately,” and “hide keys where children can’t find them.”
These warnings, however helpful, can only do so much to ensure the safety of children within a household that contains guns.
Another campaign that is more oppositional to the ownership of guns is the “We Can Do Better: Protect Children Not Guns 2013” campaign from the Children’s Defense Fund.
“As this report documents with the most recent data available, the toll of this gun violence epidemic is devastating,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and author of the forward to the “Protect Kids Not Guns 2013.”
The Children’s Defense Fund advocates the removal of all firearms from homes, asking for more concern over “the war at home.”
Some of the data collected in the report shows that in one year (2010) five times as many children were killed by guns as U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, which just goes to show the extent of this “epidemic.”
“All children have a right to live and to dream and to strive for a future that is not destroyed in a second because we cowered before a special interest lobby and refused to protect them,” emphasized Edelman.
In today’s world, where the ongoing debate over gun control runs rampant throughout the country, it is important to know about the dangers that come with owning a firearm.
I am aware that many will disagree with my opinion, but for those who invoke their Second Amendment Rights without reading the fine print, take note: People kill people, but guns facilitate those deaths.
Gun regulations, especially in households with children, will prevent the unnecessary loss of innocent lives nationwide. And that, is the undeniable truth.
For more information about the “We Can Do Better” campaign, visit www.childrensdefense.org.