A new study has found that firearm accidents among youth are more likely to occur in the home. Due to recent school shootings, gun control and safety have been at the top of a lot of conversations. The number one cause of death in the US right now for youth is firearms, and this is something that needs to be taken seriously.
This means that work needs to be done to see what can be done to prevent accidents from happening. There are many tragic stories in the news about children losing their lives to accidental shootings, and in order to help stop it, they have to know where they are happening, and why.
According to Medical Xpress, a study has found that most unintentional firearm injuries among children are happening in their homes. This study was done by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and it can be read in full here.
The study found that when it came to unintentional shootings, they are most likely occurring in the home of the victim, or the home of a friend or family member. They also found that in most instances, the situations are one child shooting another child by accident. This is an important reminder to gun-owning parents that they need to make sure their guns are secure and away from children.
To complete this study, researchers looked at data from the Pediatric Research Program, and they looked at accidental shootings that occurred among children under the age of 19. They wanted to look for potential factors that are at play, in the hopes that this would identify which children may be at high-risk for falling victim to an accidental shooting. They also looked at powder guns, and air-power guns, which means they looked at BB guns and pellet guns as well.
They found that 29% of the injuries were caused by powder guns, and 71% were by non-powder guns, with BB guns causing the most injuries. They also said that most of the injuries were likely caused because they were used with guns that are not considered “lethal.”
However, they sent a reminder that just because these guns may not result in death, they can still cause serious injury, and there are some fatal cases. The experts are recommending that parents not only lock up any guns, but that they have conversations with their children on how to be safe, and what items are not toys to play with.
Sources: Medical Xpress, AAP