The Impact of Gun Violence on Children and Teens

When Davonte was asked what he wanted for his birthday, he didn’t ask for a big celebration, he only said, “I’m glad I made it to see 18.” He was shot and killed less than one week after turning 18. He had previously spoken before the Baltimore City Council on youth violence prevention.

Key Findings

The Deadly Impact of Guns on Children and Teens in America

Annually, more than 4,000 children and teens (ages 0 to 19) are shot and killed, and more than 17,000 are shot and wounded—that’s an average of 59 children and teens in the US every day.¹Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Ages 0 to 19. Everytown Research analysis of 2020 HCUP nonfatal injury data. And the effects of gun violence extend far beyond those struck by a bullet: An estimated three million children witness a shooting each year.²Everytown Research analysis of David Finkelhor et al., “Prevalence of Childhood Exposure to Violence, Crime, and Abuse: Results from the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence,” JAMA Pediatrics 169, no. 8 (August 2015): 746-54, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.0676. Everytown’s analysis derives the 3 million number by multiplying the share of children (ages 0 to 17) who are exposed to shootings per year (4 percent) by the total child population of the US in 2016 (~73.5 million). Gun violence shapes the lives of the children who witness it, know someone who was shot, or live in fear of the next shooting.

Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teens.³Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death, Injury Mechanism & All Other Leading Causes. Data from 2022. Children and teenagers aged 1 to 19. This is a uniquely American problem. Compared to other high-income countries, American children aged 5 to 14 are 21 times more likely to be killed with guns, and American adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 24 are 23 times more likely to be killed with guns.⁴Grinshteyn E, Hemenway D. Violent death rates in the US compared to those of the other high-income countries, 2015. Preventive Medicine. 2019;123:20-26.

When American children and teens are killed with guns, 63 percent are homicides—nearly 2,600 deaths per year.⁵Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Ages 0 to 19. Homicide includes shootings by police. Children are particularly impacted by the intersection of domestic violence and gun violence. For children under age 13 who are victims of gun homicides, 85 percent of those deaths occur in the home, and nearly a third of those deaths are connected to intimate partner or family violence.⁶Fowler KA, Dahlberg LL, Haileyesus T, Gutierrez C, Bacon S. Childhood firearm injuries in the United States. Pediatrics. 2017;140(1). Between 2015 and 2022, nearly two in three child and teen victims of mass shootings died in incidents connected to domestic violence.⁷Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Mass Shootings in the United States,” Mach 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/mass-shootings-in-america. Data drawn from 16 states indicate that nearly two-thirds of child fatalities involving domestic violence were caused by guns.⁸Adhia A, Austin SB, Fitzmaurice GM, Hemenway D. The role of intimate partner violence in homicides of children aged 2-14 years. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2019;56(1):38-46.

Another 31 percent of child and teen gun deaths are suicides—nearly 1,300 per year.⁹Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using four years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Ages 0 to 19. And firearm suicide has been rising dramatically: Over the past decade, the firearm suicide rate among children and teens has increased by 43 percent.¹⁰Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A percent change was developed using 2013–2022 crude rates for children and teens aged 0 to 19. For people of all ages, having access to a gun increases the risk of death by suicide by three times.¹¹Anglemyer A, Horvath T, Rutherford G. The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2014;160(2):101-110. Research shows that an estimated 4.6 million American children live in homes with at least one gun that is loaded and unlocked.¹²Matthew Miller and Deborah Azrael, “Firearm Storage in US Households with Children: Findings from the 2021 National Firearm Survey,” JAMA Network Open 5, no. 2 (2022): e2148823, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.48823. The combination of suicidal ideation and easy firearm access can be lethal. When children under the age of 18 die by gun suicide, they are likely to have used a gun they found at home: Over 80 percent of child gun suicides involved a gun belonging to a parent or relative.¹³Johnson RM, Barber C, Azrael D, Clark DE, Hemenway D. Who are the owners of firearms used in adolescent suicides? Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 2010;40(6):609-611.

Gun violence manifests in a myriad of ways in American schools, and school shootings have created new anxieties for the younger generation of students. According to an Everytown analysis, there have been at least 848 incidents of gunfire on school grounds from 2013 to 2021. Of these, 573 occurred on the grounds of preschool, elementary, middle, or high schools, resulting in 188 people killed and 392 people wounded.¹⁴Everytown’s Gunfire on School Grounds database includes 275 incidents on colleges and universities from 2013 to 2021. These incidents were excluded from analyses to focus on gunfire on preschool and K-12 school grounds. While mass fatality shootings¹⁵Those in which four or more people are shot and killed, not including the shooter. like the incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School—and, more recently, at Robb Elementary School—are not commonplace, schools are more likely to experience gun homicides and assaults, unintentional shootings resulting in injury or death, and gun suicide and self-harm injuries. All incidents of gun violence in schools, regardless of their intent or victim count, compromise the safety of students and staff.

Children and teens who live in cities are at a significantly higher risk of gun homicides and assaults compared to their peers in rural areas. Ninety-two percent of all hospitalizations of children for firearm injuries occur in urban areas (counties with over 50,000 residents).¹⁶Herrin BR, Gaither JR, Leventhal JM, Dodington J. Rural versus urban hospitalizations for firearm injuries in children and adolescents. Pediatrics. 2018;142(2): e20173318. Everytown calculation from dividing the number of urban hospitalizations by the total number of hospitalizations. These injuries have lifelong consequences: Almost 50 percent of the wounded have a disability when they are discharged from the hospital.¹⁷DiScala C, Sege R. Outcomes in children and young adults who are hospitalized for firearms-related injuries. Pediatrics. 2004;113(5):1306–12. Fifteen- to 19-year-olds in urban areas are hospitalized for firearm assaults at a rate eight times higher than 15- to 19-year-olds in rural areas.¹⁸Herrin BR, Gaither JR, Leventhal JM, Dodington J. Rural versus urban hospitalizations for firearm injuries in children and adolescents. Pediatrics. 2018;142(2): e20173318. Children and teens from 15 to 19; Nance ML, Denysenko L, Durbin DR. The rural-urban continuum: variability in statewide serious firearm injuries in children and adolescents. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. 2002;156(8):781-5. Urban and low-income youth are much more likely to witness gun violence than suburban and higher-income youth.¹⁹Stein BD, Jaycox LH, Kataoka S, Rhodes HJ, Vestal KD. Prevalence of child and adolescent exposure to community violence. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. 2003 Dec;6(4):247-64.

The Disproportionate Impact of Gun Violence on Black and Latinx Children and Teens

As with gun violence generally, the impact of this crisis on children and teens is not equally shared across populations. Black children and teens in America are more than 17 times more likely than their white peers to die by gun homicide.²⁰Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Ages 0 to 19. Black and white defined as non-Latinx origin. Homicide includes shootings by police. Black children and teens are 13 times more likely to be hospitalized for a firearm assault than white children.²¹Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund, “A More Complete Picture: The Contours of Gun Injury in the United States,” December 2020, https://every.tw/33Hto3F. Latinx children and teens are 3 times more likely to die by gun homicide than their white peers.²²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. A yearly average was developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. Ages 0 to 19. Latinx defined as all races of Latinx origin. White defined as non-Latinx origin. Homicide includes shootings by police.

White and Black children may live in the same city yet experience it differently. Due to policy decisions that enforce racial segregation and disinvestment in certain communities, gun violence is concentrated in Black neighborhoods within cities, many of which are marked by high levels of poverty and joblessness and low levels of investment in education.²³Chandler A. Interventions for reducing violence and its consequences for young Black males in America. Cities United. 2016. https://bit.ly/2xGoNPG. A high concentration of these factors in a neighborhood is referred to as “concentrated disadvantage” and is a strong predictor of violent crime. Youth in neighborhoods that experience concentrated disadvantage can be isolated from institutions such as schools and jobs, increasing the risk that they will engage in crime and violence, thus feeding into this vicious cycle of violence.²⁴Ibid.

Black and Latinx children in cities are exposed to violence at higher rates than white children. Exposure includes witnessing violence, hearing gunshots, and knowing individuals who have been shot. Black children in Columbus, OH, were exposed to 66 percent more violence, on average, than white children.²⁵Browning CR, Calder CA, Ford JL, Boettner B, Smith AL, Haynie D. Understanding racial differences in exposure to violent areas: integrating survey, smartphone, and administrative data resources. Annals of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 2017;669(1):41-62. In Chicago, Latinx children had 74 percent greater odds of exposure to violence, and Black children 112 percent greater odds, than white children.²⁶Zimmerman GM, Messner SF. Individual, family background, and contextual explanations of racial and ethnic disparities in youths’ exposure to violence. American Journal of Public Health. 2013;103(3):435-442. When children in these cities are exposed to gun violence, their communities and schools often lack the resources to help them heal.²⁷Kohli S, Lee I. What it’s like to go to school when dozens have been killed nearby. Los Angeles Times. February 27, 2019. https://lat.ms/2VrTDqt.

The disproportionate impact of gun violence on Black and Latinx children and teens extends to schools. Among the incidents of gunfire at K-12 schools between 2013 and 2021, where the racial demographic information of the student body was known, 67 percent occurred in majority-minority schools.²⁸Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “How To Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools: A Plan to Keep Students Safe,” August 19, 2022, https://everytownresearch.org/report/how-to-stop-shootings-and-gun-violence-in-schools/. Everytown gathered demographic information on the student population of each school included in our Gunfire on School Grounds database for which data were available, comprising 552 of 569 incidents. A majority-minority school is defined as one in which one or more racial and/or ethnic minorities constitute a majority of the student population. Although Black students represent approximately 15 percent of the total K-12 school population in the US, they constitute 30 percent of the average population at schools that have been impacted by a fatal shooting.²⁹US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary and Secondary Education, 1998–99 through 2018–19; National Elementary and Secondary Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity Projection Model, 1972 through 2029,” Common Core Data (CCD), September 2020, https://bit.ly/3HI5tVf. Everytown averaged the student population size, both total and Black student populations, for the years 2013 to 2021. Data at the national level for demographics of the student population at preschools is not available. See Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “How To Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools: A Plan to Keep Students Safe,” August 19, 2022, https://everytownresearch.org/report/how-to-stop-shootings-and-gun-violence-in-schools/.

While the above discussion shows the disparate experiences of gun violence by race and ethnicity, the data further show that gun violence is concentrated in specific neighborhoods in cities, with some schools and certain communities experiencing gun violence with an alarming frequency.

• Of the schools covered by gunshot detection technology in Washington, DC, just 9 percent experienced nearly half of all gunfire incidents. Four schools, including two middle schools and two high schools, had at least nine incidents of gunfire within just 500 feet of the school.³⁰Bieler S, La Vigne N. Close-range gunfire around DC schools. Urban Institute. September 2014. https://urbn.is/2Hazr8y. Gunshot detection technology covered 66 percent (116 out of 175) of traditional public schools and charters during the study period.
• Similarly, in Los Angeles, 34 percent of middle school students in one neighborhood with high rates of violence reported exposure to firearm violence.³¹Aisenberg E, Ayón C, Orozco-Figueroa A. The role of young adolescents’ perception in understanding the severity of exposure to community violence and PTSD. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. 2008;23(11):1555-78.
• At certain urban middle schools in Texas, nearly 40 percent of boys and 30 percent of girls have witnessed a gun being pulled.³²Barroso CS, Peters RJ, Kelder S, Conroy J, Murray N, Orpinas P. Youth exposure to community violence: association with aggression, victimization, and risk behaviors. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma. 2008;17(2):141-155.
• A study of 7-year-olds in an urban neighborhood found that 75 percent had heard gunshots, 18 percent had seen a dead body, and 61 percent worried some or a lot of the time that they might get killed or die.³³Hallam Hurt et al., “Exposure to Violence: Psychological and Academic Correlates in Child Witnesses,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 155, no. 12 (2001): 1351-56, https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.155.12.1351.

The Far-reaching Impact of Children’s and Teens’ Exposure to Gun Violence

Children are harmed in numerous ways when they witness violence. Children exposed to violence, crime, and abuse are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol; suffer from depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder; resort to aggressive and violent behavior; and engage in criminal activity.³⁴David Finkelhor et al., “Children’s Exposure to Gun Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey,” US Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, October 2009, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/227744.pdf; Eboni Morris, “Youth Violence: implications for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Urban Youth,” National Urban League, March 2009, https://bit.ly/2KBpOyg; Patrick J. Fowler et al., “Community Violence: A Meta-Analysis on the Effect of Exposure and Mental Health Outcomes of Children and Adolescents,” Development and Psychopathology 21, no. 1 (2009): 227–59, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579409000145. Exposure to community violence, including witnessing shootings and hearing gunshots, makes it harder for children to succeed in school.³⁵Hallam Hurt et al., “Exposure to Violence: Psychological and Academic Correlates in Child Witnesses,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 155, no. 12 (2001): 1351-56, https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.155.12.1351; David Schwartz and Andrea Hopmeyer Gorman, “Community Violence Exposure and Children’s Academic Functioning,” Journal of Educational Psychology 95, no. 1 (2003): 163–73, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.1.163.

Children’s exposure to gun violence can also erode physical health. When children live in neighborhoods where gun violence is common, they spend less time playing and being physically active, with one study finding that children said they would engage in an additional hour of physical activity every week if safety increased in their neighborhood.³⁶Molnar BE, Gortmaker SL, Bull FC, Buka SL. Unsafe to play? Neighborhood disorder and lack of safety predict reduced physical activity among urban children and adolescents. American Journal of Health Promotion. 2004;18(5):378-86.

Stress related to gun violence affects student performance and well-being in schools. School-aged children have lower grades and more absences when they are exposed to violence.³⁷Hallam Hurt et al., “Exposure to Violence: Psychological and Academic Correlates in Child Witnesses,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 155, no. 12 (2001): 1351-56, https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.155.12.1351; David Schwartz and Andrea Hopmeyer Gorman, “Community Violence Exposure and Children’s Academic Functioning,” Journal of Educational Psychology 95, no. 1 (2003): 163–73, https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.95.1.163. High school students who have been exposed to violence have lower test scores and lower rates of high school graduation.³⁸Harding DJ. Collateral consequences of violence in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Social Forces. 2009;88(2):757-784; Finkelhor D, Turner H, Shattuck A, Hamby S, Kracke K. US Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Children’s exposure to gun violence, crime, and abuse: an update. September 2015. https://bit.ly/2tK7ah6. One study estimated that Black children in Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods spend at least a week out of every month functioning at lower concentration levels due to local homicides.³⁹Sharkey P. The acute effect of local homicides on children’s cognitive performance. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2010;107(26):11733-11738. In Syracuse, NY, elementary schools located in areas with high concentrations of gunshots had 50 percent lower test scores and higher rates of standardized test failure compared to elementary schools in areas with a low concentration of gunshots.⁴⁰Bergen-Cico D, Lane SD, Keefe RH. Community gun violence as a social determinant of elementary school achievement. Social Work in Public Health. 2018;33(7-8):439-448.

Black high school students in the US are over twice as likely as white high school students to miss school due to safety concerns.⁴¹Sheats KJ, Irving SM, Mercy JA, et al. Violence-related disparities experienced by Black youth and young adults: opportunities for prevention. American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2018;55(4):462-469. In Chicago, following spikes in neighborhood violence, students reported feeling less safe, experiencing more disciplinary problems, and having less trust in teachers.⁴²Burdick-Will J. Neighborhood violence, peer effects, and academic achievement in Chicago. Sociology of Education. 2018;91(3):205-223.

Recommendations

Comprehensive approaches to protect our youth and prevent children’s exposure to gun violence in their communities and schools must include a combination of gun safety laws and school and community-based solutions.

Background checks on all gun sales

The foundation of any comprehensive gun violence prevention strategy must be background checks for all gun sales. Under current federal law, criminal background checks are required only for sales conducted by licensed dealers. This loophole is easy to exploit and makes it easy for convicted felons or domestic abusers to acquire guns without a background check simply by finding an unlicensed seller online or at a gun show.

Extreme Risk laws

These laws, increasingly being adopted by states, empower family members and law enforcement to petition a judge to temporarily block a person from having guns if they pose a danger to themselves or others. Extreme Risk laws—sometimes referred to as “red flag” laws—can help prevent suicide, too. That is meaningful because nearly six out of every 10 gun deaths are suicides,⁴³Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. WONDER Online Database, Underlying Cause of Death. Firearm suicide deaths to total gun deaths ratio developed using five years of the most recent available data: 2018 to 2022. and the suicide rate among children and teens has been increasing exponentially in the past 10 years.

Secure gun storage and child access prevention laws

Secure storage laws require people to store firearms responsibly to prevent unsupervised access to firearms. A subset of these laws, known as child access prevention laws, specifically target unsupervised access by minors. Secure firearm storage practices are associated with reductions in the risk of self-inflicted and unintentional firearm injuries among children and teens—up to 85 percent depending on the type of storage practice.⁴⁴Grossman DC, Mueller BA, Riedy C, et al. Gun storage practices and risk of youth suicide and unintentional injuries. JAMA. 2005;293(6):707-714. Study found households that locked both firearms and ammunition had an 85 percent lower risk of unintentional firearm deaths than those that locked neither.

Community leaders and school officials can help prevent shootings by notifying families about the critical importance of secure firearms storage.⁴⁵Students Demand Action, “Urge Your School Board to Act on School Safety,” January 26, 2022, https://studentsdemandaction.org/report/urge-your-school-board-to-act-on-school-safety/. Public awareness campaigns like the Be SMART program, developed by Everytown, educate the school community on secure gun storage. School districts across the country are passing resolutions requiring schools to provide parents with resources about secure gun storage.⁴⁶Tyler Kingkade, “How Moms Are Quietly Passing Gun Safety Policy through School Boards,” NBC News, February 10, 2020, https://nbcnews.to/3azPWHf. State legislatures can also enact laws mandating this requirement.⁴⁷Everytown for Gun Safety, ”Following Tireless Advocacy by California Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, California Legislature Passes Groundbreaking Gun Violence Prevention Bills,” press release, August 9, 2022, https://www.everytown.org/press/following-tireless-advocacy-by-california-moms-demand-action-students-demand-action-california-legislature-passes-groundbreaking-gun-violence-prevention-bills/.

Keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers

Children are frequent casualties of domestic violence homicides when a gun is involved. Research also shows that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely that a woman will be killed.⁴⁸Campbell JC, Webster D, Koziol-McLain J, et al. Risk factors for femicide within physically abuse intimate relationships: results from a multisite case control study. American Journal of Public Health. 2003;93(7):1089-1097. It is imperative to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers to keep women, children, and their families safe. When abusers are convicted of domestic violence or subject to final restraining orders, they should be blocked from purchasing guns and required to turn in those they already own. We also need to close the “dating partner loophole” by making sure those laws apply to abusers regardless of whether the violence is directed towards a spouse or a dating partner.

In addition to evidence-based gun safety laws, there are a number of programs and strategies that communities and schools can adopt to keep children and teens safe from gun violence, some examples of which include:

Crisis intervention programs

Schools should work with community partners to create trauma-informed crisis intervention practices to intervene before a person commits an act of violence.⁴⁹Jillian Peterson, James Densley, and Missy Dodds, “The R-Model: Ready-Respond-Refer-Revisit, K–12 School Crisis Response Teams,” accessed April 21, 2023, https://off-ramp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/R-Model-Protocol-Final-2.pdf. A 2018 Department of Homeland Security report stated that “preventing violence by detecting and addressing these [behavioral] red flags is more effective than any physical security measure.”⁵⁰US Department of Homeland Security, “K–12 School Security: A Guide for Preventing and Protecting against Gun Violence, 2nd Edition,” 2018, https://bit.ly/41LxK7y. Successful crisis interventions uphold students’ civil rights and avoid a disproportionate impact on historically marginalized students and students with disabilities, address student access to guns, and provide appropriate school-based mental health services.⁵¹Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “How to Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools: A Plan to Keep Students Safe, “ August 19, 2022, https://everytownresearch.org/school-safety-plan; National Threat Assessment Center, “Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Preventing Targeted School Violence,” US Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, July 2018, https://bit.ly/3ovPJAC; Jillian Peterson, James Densley, and Missy Dodds, “The R-Model: Ready-Respond-Refer-Revisit, K–12 School Crisis Response Teams,” accessed April 21, 2023, https://off-ramp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/R-Model-Protocol-Final-2.pdf.

Safe and equitable schools

School communities must look inside their schools to make sure they are encouraging effective partnerships between students and adults, while also looking externally to ensure that they are a key community resource. Schools should review discipline practices and ensure threat assessment programs are not adversely affecting school discipline. They should work to become “community schools” by building effective community partnerships that provide services that support students, families, and neighborhoods. If and when employing school resource officers (SROs), schools should take steps to build relationships between communities and law enforcement.

Youth-centric intervention programs

A variety of programs exist to help children cope with witnessing firearm violence. School-based programs, including social emotional learning, have been shown to reduce the negative effects of children’s exposure to gun violence. Mentoring programs are effective at improving academic performance and reducing youth violence. Chicago’s Safe Passage program makes children feel safer on their way to and from school and may increase school attendance. To learn more about two specific organizations that help children succeed after witnessing violence, please explore these resources about the Hip Hop Heals and Becoming A Man programs.

If you or someone you know has been exposed to gun violence, there are resources that can help. Everytown’s Children’s Responses to Trauma provides information for parents and adults about how to support children and teens who have experienced a shooting or are upset by images of gun violence. Additional information to help with the emotional, medical, financial, and legal consequences of gun violence for individuals and communities is on our Resources page.