Portions of the U.S. have become like the “wild west,” and in many ways even worse than that. A CNN headline from earlier this year reads, “More US school-age children die from guns than on-duty US police or global military fatalities, study finds.”

This blog post is not about being pro-2^nd-Amendment or anti-2^nd-Amendment. The sheer quantity of guns in the U.S., and the gap between the virtuous man’s right to bear arms and the vicious criminal’s ill use of that right (not to mention the degraded character of our throw-away culture), means America’s gun problem has no easy solution. So, philosophical arguments and unrealistic ideas about solutions are here put aside.

The link below presents data for your consideration. Although the CNN headline mentions the word school-age, bear in mind this is not data on school shootings only. It includes all types of gun deaths for victims up to age 18. Before the link, some highlights:

– National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) data show 38,942 fatalities among 5- to 18-year-olds from 1999 to 2017.

– The gun deaths included 6,464 children between the ages of 5 and 14 years old (an average of 340 deaths per year).

– The remaining 32,478 deaths were teens between 15 and 18 years old (an average of 2,050 deaths per year).

– Of the deaths, 86% involved boys. Black children accounted for 41% of those killed, though in recent years they’ve comprised just 14% of the US population.

Further data breakdowns can be found in the article:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/22/health/gun-deaths-school-age-children-trnd/index.html?fbclid=IwAR34mN6ywGtkm9vSxaVxAaulbm9avqAB2N9FvrjgXDkfTZ9E8v5ioI0bXh4

May God pour His mercy on all the dead and their families, and even on the guilty.