United States: there are more deaths of children in states that have relaxed firearms laws

This is now the main cause of death in children for a year. The US states that have softened their firearms legislation have registered thousands of deaths of more children, especially for homicide and suicide, which normally did not normally, according to a study published on Monday, June 9.

If using weapons is considered a constitutional right in the United States, each State can develop it with more or less strict regulations. And when, in 2010, the Supreme Court judged that the second amendment could oppose local states and communities, most decided to soften the conditions of access to weapons.

“Mortality due to car accidents has decreased spectacularly, but at the same time, mortality due to firearms has increased and replaced car accidents such as the main cause of death in children for a year,” said Jeremy Faust to the AFP at the head of the study published in the Jama Pediatrics Medical Journal.

According to this emergency doctor at the Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston, this is a unique trend among countries comparable to the United States.

7,400 additional deaths

For this study, his team carried out a “mortality analysis”, which compared the real deaths from 2011 to 2023 with projections based on previous trends from 1999 to 2010, taking into account population growth.

The results are surprising: in the states that have softened their legislation on firearms, more than 7,400 deaths of children for firearms were recorded, including 6,000 in the most lax group.

In comparison, the eight strictest states have generally known any excess of mortality. And if the study cannot prove the existence of an indisputable cause and an effect link between dead and softened laws, the enlightening data stands out.

The researchers, for example, analyzed homicides and suicides without a gun and did not find a significant increase there. In addition, black children have experienced the greatest increase, the study issued by the hypothesis of social disparity in the more or less safe location of weapons in homes.

The researchers also noticed exceptions: the number of deaths has increased in Illinois and Connecticut despite the strictest laws, the dead are, in the second case, mainly due to a massive murder in a school in 2012.