At least 157 people were killed and 270 were injured last year in unintentional shootings by children, says the advocacy group Everytown. The children who pulled the trigger were most often teenagers ages 14 to 17 or children ages 5 and under, according to Everytown’s data, which is compiled from media reports. Roughly half of the incidents involved children who shot themselves. In the other half, someone else was injured or killed — usually another child, reports NBC News. “The victim is often a sibling, a cousin or a friend,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps of Everytown. “It leaves multiple families facing grief and regret.” Everytown believes federal and state authorities should do more to track and provide data about such incidents to help identify the best ways to stop them.
Deaths included a 2-year-old girl in Indiana who shot herself with a gun she found in her home and an 8-year-old boy in Alabama who was shot with a firearm that had been removed from his mother’s car. In Florida, a 12-year-old boy died and a 15-year-old was injured by a 14-year-old who was playing with a gun that he thought was unloaded. Last year marked the highest number of unintentional shootings by children under 18 that Everytown has tallied since it began tracking them in 2015: 411 incidents resulted in injuries or deaths, with some involving multiple victims. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides broad data on injuries and deaths in unintentional shootings, but the data are limited and can be delayed for years. Some states only recently began submitting detailed reports about incidents to the federal government. And information about injuries is far less complete than it is for deaths, because there is less documentation.