Gunshots have surpassed the death toll on the roads and become the leading cause of death among young Americans, with official figures showing an increase in gun homicides, such as the murder of 19 children at a Texas school on Tuesday, according to Agence France-Presse.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a total of 4,368 children and adolescents died from gun-related injuries in 2020, accounting for 5.4 deaths per 100,000 people. Homicide accounted for almost two-thirds of deaths caused by firearms.

By comparison, there were 4,036 deaths related to car accidents, the previous leading cause of death among this age group.

The gap began to close as security improved over the decades and gun-related deaths rose.

The CDC data also showed that about 30 percent of child and teen deaths are suicides, just over 3 percent are unintentional, and 2 percent are for undetermined causes. A small number of gun deaths have been classified as “legal interference” or self-defence.

Mortality has disproportionately affected black children and adolescents, who are four times more likely to die than white children, for whom traffic accidents remain a greater threat. The second group most affected by firearms is the indigenous population.

Men are 6 times more likely to die from firearms than women.

The death rate associated with firearms is highest in Washington, D.C., followed by Louisiana and then Alaska.

These numbers have helped confirm that horrific mass shootings like the one in Yuvaldi, Texas, account for only a small percentage of all childhood gun deaths.

Holden Thorpe, Editor-in-Chief of a leading scientific journal, published an article calling for more research on the public health effects of gun ownership in order to bring about a change in gun ownership policy. “Scientists should not sit on the sidelines while others struggle with this,” he said.

“More research on the impact of gun ownership on public health will provide more evidence of its deadly effects,” he said, noting that acute mental illness often attributed to mass shootings is common at similar levels in other countries where shootings do not occur. .