We all need to take a troubling, new gun violence study to heart

The more guns are available, the more children will find them and use them.

By Jeff Nesbit

A new gun violence study that looked at deaths among children in America since a pivotal Supreme Court decision 15 years ago has a troubling finding: Children are more at risk of dying from firearm violence in states with more permissive gun laws than in states that maintained strict gun ownership laws after the court decision.

The study’s sobering finding that firearms deaths among children and teenagers increased substantially in states that enacted more permissive gun laws in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling will bolster efforts by gun violence prevention advocacy groups fighting for more restrictions—not fewer—on firearms.

Beyond the political implications, the study is important for this reason: Firearms are now the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in America. Firearms surpassed car accidents to become the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States in 2020.

Here’s the background.

In 2010, the Supreme Court limited local governments’ ability to restrict gun ownership. The court finding generally emboldened red states to loosen gun ownership laws, while blue states maintained their strict gun laws.

But over the next 13 years, the JAMA Pediatrics study found two startling things:

• First, that thousands more children died from firearm violence than earlier trends had predicted;

• Second, that all of the increase in firearm deaths among children happened in states that had more permissive gun laws.

What’s more, in the nine (blue) states with the strictest gun laws, firearms deaths among children and teenagers did not increase. And in four of them - California, Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island - they were actually cut in half.

The study’s lead author, Jeremy Faust, an emergency room doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told The New York Times that he and the other study authors were dismayed to find that most of the children’s deaths were homicides and suicides.

“It’s surprising how few of these are accidents,” Faust said to The New York Times. “I always thought that a lot of pediatric mortality from guns is that somebody got into the wrong place, and I still think safe storage is important, but it’s mostly homicides and suicides.”

The most obvious and clear takeaway from this study is this: The more firearms are available, the more children and teenagers will find them and use them. Sadly, this conclusion will likely not change the minds of parents in red states or GOP leaders who have shouted for years that more firearms will make us all safer.

True to form, the head of the NRA’s education arm outright dismissed the study, rather than trying to deal with its clear implications. The study is “political propaganda masquerading as scientific research,” said John Commerford, the executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.

But, though the study’s findings are sobering and should give parents even in red states pause, the fact that its clear, obvious implications will be ignored by the Trump GOP and dismissed by groups like the NRA is hardly surprising.

The JAMA Pediatrics study was coauthored by researchers from Yale New Haven Hospital, the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine and the schools of public health at University of Pittsburgh and Brown University.

Trump’s GOP and its allies—like the NRA—are openly waging an ideological war on blue states, leading centers of academic research, medical institutions funded by the National Institutes of Health and public health advocates and researchers working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The largest blue states—California and New York—have imposed some of the tightest gun controls, further enraging the Trump GOP and its allies. New York, for instance, expanded its assault weapons ban, required background checks for ammunition purchases, and expanded so-called “red flag” laws. California, likewise, expanded gun control laws, including a ban on the possession of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.

In fact, the researchers’ obtained their statistics for their gun violence study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Injury and Violence Prevention Center—an office that was gutted by President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at the request of the White House.

In May, hundreds of public health and research groups urged the Trump administration and Congress to reinstate the funding and rehire officials in the CDC’s gun violence office.

“Across this country, communities are suffering from preventable firearm-related injuries and deaths,” they wrote. “The freedom of individuals to own firearms can and should be balanced with protecting children and their families from serious harm, and ensuring the health, security, and well-being of all people.”

The plea fell on deaf ears in the Trump White House and the GOP Congress.

What should be obvious by now is that the Trump administration will stifle research, ignore progress in blue states, and continue to attack anyone (e.g., academic researchers from leading universities in blue states reporting on observable facts) who opposes it. That includes efforts to limit firearms and lower the risk of homicides and suicide among children and teenagers.

But whether the Trump GOP and its allies wish to believe it or not, the truth of the startling gun violence study is this: If more states had adopted stricter gun laws, many more children would be alive today. Where you live can mean life or death.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief at five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.

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