Below are the statistics for
shooting incidents involving children that we have posted in March here at Kid Shootings. We fell behind a bit that month with all the reports coming in.
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 March, 2012
Total number of gun crimes and
shootings posted on: 129
Total number of children who were
victims: 116 (see below; doesn't
count intentional shooters)
Total number of children who were unintentional shooters (accidental): 15
Total number of children who were intentional shooters (doesn't count suicides or defensive): 15
Total number of children who were intentional shooters (doesn't count suicides or defensive): 15
Total children killed: 30
Total children injured: 65
Total non-injured (shot at but
missed, kidnapped at gunpoint, etc): 24
Ages:
17: 23
16: 20
15: 18
14: 19
13: 11
12: 16
11: 10
10: 4
9: 2
8: 6
7: 2
6: 6
5: 5
4: 5
3: 2
2: 5
1: 0
0-1: 0
"teen": 7
"child": 17
Gender:
Boys: 110
Girls: 42
Unknown: 28
Status:
Victims: 116
Shooters: 33 (15 of which seemed
intentional, 0 defensive, not
counting suicides)
Types of shootings:
Homicide: 15
Attempted Homicide: 19
Accidental: 30
Suicide: 0
Attempted Suicide: 0
Threatened by gunmen but unharmed: 13
3 involved robberies
17 involved children "playing
with" or handling unsecured guns
0 were from a dropped gun
2 were from gun owners "cleaning
a gun" when the gun discharged
1 was a hunting accident
Stray Bullets: 14
On School Grounds: 29
School Shootings: 3
Clearly Gang-Related: 7
Drug-Related: 2
Defensive: 0
Law Enforcement: 1
Kidnapping: 0
Murder/Suicide: 3
Hostage: 1
Pellet / BB Gun-Related: 16 (9 of which on school grounds)
Toy Gun-Related: 0
Hunting-related: 1
1 involved a stolen gun
0 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?
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