Gun violence is the top killer of US kids—the pandemic made it worse

Enlarge / Guns on display during a buyback event in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles on March 4. Los Angeles County, in partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department, hosted a voluntary gun buyback event offering residents gift cards between $100-200 value to surrender their unwanted firearms. (credit: Getty | Jill Connelly)

While gun violence has for years been among the leading causes of death for US children, the COVID-19 pandemic sent it skyrocketing to the top cause while widening racial disparities.

In the years before the pandemic—from 2015 to early 2020—Black children in four major US cities were 27 times more likely to be shot than white children. But, from 2020 to the end of 2021, Black children were 100 times more likely to be shot than white children, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open. The study examined firearm assault data from New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

The study also found that Hispanic children were about 26 times more likely to be shot than white children during the pandemic, up from a relative risk of 8.6-fold prior to the health emergency. And Asian children were about four times more likely to be shot than white children, up from a relative risk of 1.4-fold from before the pandemic.