Posted on 05/02/2023 11:09:41 AM PDT by Paal Gulli
New research reveals that most child victims of gun violence are innocent bystanders
by University of Missouri
A University of Missouri School of Medicine researcher examining the circumstances behind pediatric firearm assaults found that most child shooting victims were shot outdoors for unknown reasons and were likely not intentionally targeted.
Firearm injuries surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of child deaths in 2020. Assault has become the most common cause of firearm injury among American children and adolescents, surpassing firearm suicide and accidental firearm injuries. However, very little research exists examining the circumstances behind these pediatric assaults.
A group of researchers led by Mary Bernardin, MD, assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine and pediatric emergency medicine, examined cases of children who presented to St. Louis Children's Hospital with firearm injuries from 2014 to 2017. The researchers found that 72% of these children were shot outdoors by an unknown shooter, whose motivation was unknown in 93% of cases.
"Prior research has often described pediatric firearms victims as victims of assault between people who are known to each other, which implies fault on the part of the victim," said Bernardin. "This research shows that in most cases children who are shot may not have been the intended target and that the victim and shooter are unknown to each other."
According to the research, the most common circumstance was being shot outdoors by an unknown shooter with an unknown motivation. The second most common description was a drive-by shooting. These shootings were often described by victims as occurring while the child was doing outdoors activities, such as walking home from school, playing in the park, or sitting on the stoop of their house.
Fewer than 15% of shootings were obvious intentional assaults, which would include disputes or attempted robberies. Three high-risk incident ZIP codes in St. Louis City accounted for 40% of the shootings.
"Children residing in areas where shootings are frequently occurring are suffering an increasing number of firearm injuries and deaths," said Bernardin. "To better inform appropriate public policy interventions, we must understand why and how these shootings are happening. Most children are victims of circumstance simply because of the underlying conditions of the neighborhoods in which they live and not victims because of any actions of their own."
"Child firearms injury circumstances and associations with violence intervention program enrollment" was recently published by the Journal of Surgical Research. In addition to Bernardin, the study co-authors included researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and St. Louis Children's Hospital. This study follows earlier research led by Bernardin finding that surges in COVID-19 infection rates were associated with an increase in the frequency and mortality of pediatric firearm injuries.
Hammers, saws, cars, gasoline violence least affected. Hey researchers...... Phu cough!
They only got to “most common cause of death among children” by including 18 and 19 year old gangbangers. No other statistic considers 18 and 19 year olds as children.
Define "child".
You could reduce child shootings by getting more gang bangers off the streets. But the Left doesn’t want to hear that.
Need more time at the range.
Captain Obvious should have visited those “research” clowns decades ago. Oh, forgot, he did, and left laughing so hard that he never got to talk to socialists.
The headline referred to âinnocent (child) bystandersâ but the text of the article more correctly states they were not âintentionally targeted.â
Big difference. I'm thinking all child shooting victims are innocent.
Unless you define âchildâ as being 22 years old.
But even a 12-year old - if shot when spraying down a police cruiser with a Saturday night special - would not be a âvictim.â
Headline writters should be banned.
Commies in the health establishment have redefined “children to include 18 and 19 year olds to boost the gun death numbers. Excluding 18/9 Motor vehicle is #1. Exclude suicides and Motor vehicles is like 2x gun deaths.
“Bystanders” to what? Bystanders to another crime. Which will tell us who is doing the shooting in these cases - these are criminals who don’t care who gets hit. This is going to sound crazy, but why don’t we, oh, I don’t know, arrest and hold these people instead of letting them back on the street?
Meaningless without a breakdown by race.
Second, this quote: The researchers found that 72% of these children were shot outdoors by an unknown shooter, whose motivation was unknown in 93% of cases.
That just sounds like sloppy (or non-existent) police work, the 'Snitches get Stitches' mindset in many 'communities,' or just plain old 'let's make the data fit the narrative' instead of the other way around.
I call BS. 17 YO thugs are not children.
For the purpose of some crime stats, a child is a person under the age of 26. These stats are fashioned to construct the necessary narrative, transforming gang bangers shooting each other over drug deals, into little Mary in pigtails riding her bike.
Old Validated, verified and ADMITTED research reveals that DOCTORS through their own Malfeasance and Misfeasance KILL OVER 100,000 Americans Annually. So stick it up your ass you lying duplicitous POS Doctors. Oh and Pharmacists kill over 150,000 ANNUALLY by making mistakes in prescriptions
Wonder if the same researchers also found out thousands more innocent bystander children were the victims of abortion.
"One hundred and fifty-six pediatric victims of firearm injuries were identified, excluding those who were intentionally self-inflicted. Victim ages ranged from 6 to 17 y with a mean age of 15 y (standard deviation 2.2) and a median age of 16 y (interquartile range 14-16). Most victims were male (87.8%) and Black (98.1%). Seventy-five victims (48.1%) were admitted to the hospital, 77 (49.4%) were discharged home from the ED, and 4 (2.5%) died in the ED."That means 75% of the victims were between 14 and 17. Gangs, drugs, the destruction of the black family over the last 50 years are more to blame than guns.
Yes, I have heard that as well.
They are lumping in gang violence into “children’s deaths” from “gun violence”.
"In 2020, there was a sharp increase to 954 deaths (4.57 per 100,000), rising to 1,146 deaths (5.49 per 100,000) in early 2021."
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