Gun Violence Against Children in the USA Increases Greatly

Gun violence against children in the United States has increased over the years. Children of all ages are affected by the gun violence. Experts say that this drastic increase in gun violence is partially caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as easy access to guns. Some other causes are arguments and social media. It is much easier to make comments about someone in mean ways over social media. Gun violence has been on the rise in the more recent years. A spike in gun sales during the pandemic has worsened things. 

On June 29, 2020, a 4-year-old boy, LeGend Taliferro, was shot in his apartment in Kansas City, Missouri while sleeping on the floor. A man who had been involved in an argument with his father is awaiting trial for second-degree murder. The suspected shooter was said to have been trying to find LeGend’s father. 

According to PBS, LeGend’s “mother takes comfort in the fact that her son’s death helped spur a national effort that resulted in hundreds of arrests.” 

In St. Louis, March, 2021, Caion Greene, 9-year-old, died due to a teenager opening fire on his family’s car. A 17-year-old is charged with the murder of the child. 

Two children in Minneapolis were gunned down in May, 2021 alone. Trinity Ottoson-Smith, 9-year-old, was shot in the head while she was jumping on her trampoline. Police say that the bullet was intended for someone else and that she was not the target. Aniya Allen, 6-year-old, was shot when her mother drove her car through a gun battle. 

According to PBS, “A March report from the Children’s Defense Fund found that child and teen shooting deaths reached a 19-year high in 2017 and have remained elevated. Black children and teenagers were four times more likely than whites to be fatally shot.”

There were 991 gun violence deaths among people 17 or younger in 2019 alone. This number spiked to 1,375 in 2020. During 2021, 1,179 young lives were lost and 3,292 youths were injured because of shootings in the USA. 

In Milwaukee, October 2, 2021, an 11-year-old girl was killed along with a 5-year-old girl getting injured because someone fired into their family car from another vehicle. In addition, Kentrell McNeal and Jamari Williams, 15-year-old students at Simeon Career Academy High School in Chicago, were shot and killed in separate shootings on September 21, 2021. 

During the last school year at Philadelphia’s Simon Gratz High School, five students were killed and nine other students were shot/shot at. Only weeks into the new school year, two students and a recent graduate were killed. 

According to PBS, “homicides in the U.S. increased nearly 30 percent in 2020, and homicides among people ages 19 and younger rose more than 21 percent.”

On the day before Father’s Day, in 2020, someone fired at a group of boys on a porch of a Chicago house. The bullet missed them, but went through a window and shot a 13-year-old girl, Amaria Jones, while she was showing her mom something. Everyone scattered for safety, however, Amaria was shot in the neck and was later pronounced dead at the hospital. 

In Philadelphia, a week before graduating highschool, Shaquille Barbour was shot 13 times while riding his bike home from a corner store. 

Studies have shown that the victims of violence have a higher chance of becoming violent themselves. In response to this, St. Louis Children’s Hospital developed its Victims of Violence program. This program seeks to reduce the chances of a victim becoming violent by offering counseling, pairing surviving shooting victims with mentors, mediation, and a link to social service agencies.