A report by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions analyzed gun death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which revealed that more than 48,000 people across the U.S. died from gun violence in 2022. Among those deaths, more than 2,500 children (ages one through nine) and teens (10 through 17) died by a firearm — an average of seven deaths every day.
That year, the report found that firearms accounted for 30 percent of all the deaths that occurred among young people ages 15 to 17. Guns were also the leading cause of death among children and teens, accounting for more deaths than car crashes, overdoses, or cancers, per the report. Notably, a distinction was made for this year’s data, with young people ages 18 to 19 categorized as “emerging adults” due to some states allowing 18 year olds to legally purchase certain firearms.
“Since 2013, the gun death rate among children and teens (1–17) has increased 106 percent,” the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions report stated. The report found that while the gun homicide rate dropped 7.5 percent in 2022, 19,651 people were killed by a gun that year — the second-highest number of gun homicide deaths recorded.
The report also spotlighted how gun violence disproportionally affected Black and Hispanic/Latino young people. In 2022, Black children and teens suffered a gun homicide rate 18 times higher compared with white children and teens. That year, the gun homicide rate among Hispanic/Latino children and teens was three times higher than for white children and teens.
While historically, white youth have had higher gun suicide rates than youth from other races and ethnicities, the report indicated that these numbers have begun to shift. Although gun suicide deaths were higher for white older teens than Black older teens and emerging adults (ages 15 to 19) in 2022, gun suicide rates have tripled among Black older teens and emerging adults and have doubled among Hispanic/Latinos in the same age group from 2013 to 2022.
Gun violence accounted for 55 percent of deaths among older Black teens ages 15 to 17 in 2022, while American Indian/Alaskan Native people were five times more likely to die by firearm homicide compared with white people in the same age group.
The report emerges amid a call among Democrats for stricter gun legislation and a contentious 2024 presidential race. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, have offered wildly different approaches to gun control. Trump has strongly aligned with the National Rifle Association and has vowed to expand gun-owners rights. Meanwhile, Harris — a gun owner herself — has supported tighter gun restrictions, including an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.
Recent months saw the tragic school shooting at a Georgia high school that left four dead, and a second assassination attempt of former President Trump in two months, according to the FBI.
In its report, the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions stated that it is the center’s “mission to provide policymakers and the public accurate and up-to-date data on gun fatalities and illustrate the enormous toll gun violence has on our country.”