US victims of gun violence in 2022 include 6032 children under 17

The number of children shot and killed in the United States in 2022 exceeded 6000. The Gun Violence Archive found that at least 6032 children, 17 years of age and younger, had been the victims of America's deadly gun epidemic.

That was the highest fatality rate since the GVA started keeping a record of gun violence casualties in 2014. The figure reflected a notable increase since last year when arbitrary deployment of firearms by civilians was found to be responsible for around 5700 casualties across the country.

At least 306 Children, 11 years old or younger, have been killed by gunfire with 668 being injured. Additionally, 1325 teenagers aged 12 to 17 died by gunfire with 3732 being injured.

• More than 6,000 children have been either killed or injured so far in 2022 across the United States as a result of gun violence, an American nonprofit group reports.
  

  US gun violence: '6k-plus children killed, injured across US in 2022'

  More than 6,000 children are reportedly either killed or injured in the US so far in 2022, report says.

Last month, the GVA said there had been a total of 609 mass shootings in 2022 in the United States so far, it is projected to reach around 675 by the end of the year.

The grim statistics come after a three year old girl in Kansas City, Missouri, was killed on Christmas Eve in what police suspect was an accidental shooting.

The child shooting deaths in 2022 also include 19 students, all 11 years old or younger, killed in a mass shooting on May 24 at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. One of the youngest victims killed by gunfire this year was a five month old who was shot in the head while sitting in a car in Chicago during a June 24 drive by shooting.

• A gunman has shot dead 18 young children and three adults at an elementary school in the US state of Texas, in the deadliest US school shooting since the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, in which 20 children and six staff were killed.
  

  21 killed, including 18 children, in shooting at Texas elementary school

  A gunman has killed 18 young children and three adults at an elementary school in the US state of Texas.

The United States has been suffering from an expanding trend of gun violence and episodes of mass shootings.

In July, US President Joe Biden said that a flood of guns was turning American communities into killing fields

According to new data just released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America, number one killer, more than car accidents more than cancer.

Over the last two decades, more school aged children have died from guns than on duty police officers and active duty military combined.

Think about that. More kids than on duty cops killed by guns, more kids than soldiers killed by guns.

For God's sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?

US President, Joe Biden

In October the CDC released data on US firearm deaths last year counting over 47,000 which is the most in at least 40 years.

The US population is growing but researchers say the rate of gun deaths has been getting worse, too. America's gun related homicide and suicide rates both rose 8% last year, hitting unprecedented levels since the early 1990s.

In a new study, researchers examined trends in firearm deaths since 1990. They found gun deaths began to steadily increase in 2005. But the rise accelerated recently with a 20% jump from 2019 to 2021. The researchers counted more than 1.1 million gun deaths over those 32 years.

• The “gunman” has been identified by law enforcement as 18 year old Salvador Ramos.
  

  School shooting in Texas blamed on easy access to guns

  18 year old Salvador Ramos is suspected of shooting his grandmother before going on a killing spree at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

The US is saturated with guns and has become a lot more so over the past couple of decades, as deaths mount from gun related violence in the US, so do the sales of firearms. Data from 2020 shows how gun production has increased nearly threefold over the past 20 years, rising from the manufacturer of 3.9 million guns in 2000 to more than 11 point 3 million in 2020.

In addition, powerful lobbying groups, including the National Rifle Association, The NRA, spent nearly $5 million last year to expand gun rights while limiting curbs on who can have firearms and how they can be carried.

Also, gun owners have become less likely to cite hunting or sport as a reason for their ownership, instead, pointing to personal security. And despite widespread and vocal public outrage, American support for stricter gun laws in 2020 fell to the lowest level since 2014.

• Surveillance video of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, shows police and federal agents milling in hallways for more than an hour before storming a classroom where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in May.
  

  Police waited over an hour before responding to Texas school shooting: Video

  The four-minute video from 24 May shows two law enforcement officers approaching the classrooms minutes after the gunman does and then run back as the sounds of gunfire ring out in the hallway.

According to polling by Gallup, only 52% of Americans surveyed said they wanted stricter gun laws while 35% said they should remain the same. Over the last two decades, there has been a jump in the sale of high caliber handguns and semi automatic rifles.

Figures from a Swiss based research project, the Small Arms Survey, estimate that there were 390 million guns in circulation in 2018 in the US, plus the US ratio of 120.5 firearms per 100 residents far surpasses that of other countries around the world.

• More than a thousand people have gathered outside the National Rifle Association (NRA)'s annual convention in Houston, Texas, to protest gun violence in the US.
  

  Americans protest gun violence after carnage; leaders say more firearms needed

  More than a thousand people have gathered outside the NRA

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