Looking at the false claim that firearms are the leading cause of deaths for children or teens

As we have previously discussed, a common claim is that firearms are the leading cause of death for “children or adolescents.” That claim is clearly false. Homicide data is used here, but homicides involve both murders and justifiable homicides, and it is hardly obvious why justifiable homicides should be included here. Doing so inflates the total number of firearm related deaths, but put that concern aside. 

For those under 18, vehicle deaths are consistently greater than those from firearms. For those under 20, firearm deaths exceed vehicle deaths for 2020 and 2021 when you use the CDC firearm homicide data. When you use the FBI homicide data the vehicle deaths exceed the firearm deaths for 2019 and 2020, and likely 2021, though the FBI data isn’t available for that year. The bottom line is that about 1/3rd of the firearm deaths for those under 20 involve homicide where the victims are 18 and 19 years old. About another 20% of involves homicides for 15, 16, and 17 year olds. These deaths are largely gang related, and even banning guns is unlikely to stop drug gangs from getting a hold of guns to protect their extremely valuable drugs.

Suicides should also be excluded because the common claim is that if guns are eliminated people either won’t try to commit suicide or won’t be able to successfully do it. Yet, in places where guns are banned, total suicide rates remain unchanged — people change how they commit suicide. Excluding firearm suicides would reduce numbers from the CDC by 30 to 35 percent. With the FBI murder data, firearm suicides make up 38 to 42 percent of the total. So for example, in 2020 for those under 20, removing suicides would reduce the number of firearm deaths using the numbers from the CDC from 4,253 to 2,960 and using the FBI murder rate data from 3,405 to 2,112.

An Excel file with the data is available here.