Kid Shooting statistics for February 2012

Below are the statistics for shooting incidents involving children that we have posted in February here at Kid Shootings.

See our post for January statistics to see our comments on monthly statistics.  From those statistics, we estimate that our published cases represent around 19% of all cases in the U.S. for the month.

Caveat: The articles of gun crimes and shootings that we post mostly come from Google Alerts and keyword searches for very recent online news articles, and we have posted every single one that we could find, whatever the circumstances of it. But they don't represent every shooting out there. Some child-involved shootings and gun crimes simply don't get reported in the media, particularly suicides (which are, of course, very personal), accidental discharges which don't actually injure anyone, or incidents in small, rural areas. And not all that are reported online are filtered to us in a Google Alert. Every time we do a "deep dive" and investigate more thoroughly, other stories pop up, and we hear stories from local law enforcement officers, crime scene cleanup professionals, and school officials which never make it to the news.

When you read the individual stories, see the pictures of the kids, understand the circumstances, the problem of guns in our society becomes more clear. The rhetoric of the pro-gun lobby takes on a hollow sound. More concealed guns on the streets wouldn't have stopped most of these, if any. Opposing Child Access Prevention laws seems barbaric. And the idea of having more guns in more hands is a glaringly deadly proposal.

Here are the statistics for our posts for February, 2012

Total number of gun crimes and shootings posted on: 166

Total number of children who were victims: 176 (see below; doesn't count intentional shooters)

Total number of children who were unintentional shooters (accidental): 17
Total number of children who were intentional shooters (doesn't count suicides or defensive): 22

Total children killed: 44

Total children injured: 88

Total non-injured (shot at but missed, kidnapped at gunpoint, etc): 44

Ages:

17: 33

16: 28

15: 42

14: 16

13: 17

12: 20

11: 10

10: 8

9: 5

8: 6

7: 4

6: 2

5: 4

4: 5

3: 3

2: 3

1: 2

0-1: 5

"teen": 14

"child": 20

Gender:

Boys: 176

Girls: 36

Unknown: 36

Status:

Victims: 167

Shooters: 39 (22 of which seemed intentional, plus 1 defensive, not counting suicides)

Types of shootings:

Homicide: 24

Attempted Homicide: 40

Accidental: 29

Suicide:  4

Attempted Suicide: 1

Threatened by gunmen but unharmed: 14

8 involved robberies

15 involved children "playing with" or handling unsecured guns

1 was from a dropped gun

2 were from gun owners "cleaning a gun" when the gun discharged

3 were hunting accidents

Stray Bullets: 5

On School Grounds: 28

Clearly Gang-Related: 8

Drug-Related: 3

Defensive: 3

Law Enforcement: 7

Kidnapping: 0

Murder/Suicide: 3

Hostage: 1

Pellet / BB Gun-Related: 10 (4 of which on school grounds)

Toy Gun-Related: 0

Hunting-related:  3

3 involved a stolen gun

2 were Road Rage incidents

1 involved mental problems.

These numbers, as troubling as they are, are the real cost of our lax gun regulations, and children pay the price for it.

What are YOU going to do to reduce kid shootings?