Child Advocate Report On Gun Deaths

A report from the state’s Child Advocate details the gun deaths and gun injuries suffered by children over the last dozen years.

Jamey Bell of the state’s Office of the Child Advocate wants to make sure that those involved in the debate on guns are aware of all children in Connecticut who have died or been injured by guns.

“Everybody knows about the horrible tragedy in Newtown last month,” Bell said Monday.. But do they know that 94 Connecticut children  — including the Newtown 20 – were killed by guns in the past dozen years?

The reports states that most of the children killed — 60 – were between the ages of 15 and 17. Seventy-two were boys and 22 were girls. Almost half of the children died in one of three cities: Hartford, New Haven or Bridgeport.

Forty-three of t hose children were white; 40 were black, 10 were Hispanic and one was Asian. Almost 80 percent of the deaths were homicides while 17 percent were suicides and two cases were accidental.

During the same time period, 924 children under the age of 18 had gun-related injuries. Almost 90 percent of those injured were boys; 94 percent of the children were between the ages of 12 and 17; and 63 percent of the gun-related injuries occurred in the same three cities.

The report says the 20 young children who died in the mass shooting in Newtown lost their lives “due to an individual having access to highly lethal guns. The circumstances of the other 74 child deaths and the vast majority of injuries from guns in this state are very different – single incidents rather than a mass casualty, and with roots in factors underlying community violence that are not well understood.”

The full report is here.