Washington (AFP) - Firearm deaths have overtaken road traffic deaths and become the leading cause of death among young Americans, with official data showing a rise in gun-related homicides such as the killing of 19 children at a Texas school Tuesday.

In total, 4,368 children and adolescents died from injuries caused by firearms in 2020, or a rate of 5.4 deaths per 100,000, according to figures from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Homicides accounted for nearly two-thirds of firearm deaths.

For comparison, 4,036 deaths were recorded in car accidents, which is the leading cause of death in this age group.

The gap began to narrow as safety measures improved over decades and gun-related deaths rose.
The CDC data also showed that about 30 percent of child and adolescent deaths are suicides, just over 3 percent are unintentional, and 2 percent are from unspecified causes.

A small number of firearm deaths were classified as "lawful intervention" or self-defence.
The deaths disproportionately affected black children and adolescents, who were four times more likely to die than white children, for whom traffic accidents continued to be a greater threat.
The second group most affected by firearms are American Indians.
Males are six times more likely to die from firearms than females.
The rate of firearm-related deaths is highest in Washington, D.C., followed by Louisiana and Alaska.
These figures serve to underscore that while mass shootings like the one in Leuvalde are horrific, they make up only a small percentage of the overall child gun deaths.
Holden Thorpe, editor-in-chief of the leading Science magazine, published an article Thursday calling for intensified research on the effects of firearm ownership on public health, with the aim of pushing for a change in gun ownership policy.
"Scientists should not sit on the sidelines and watch others fight this," he said.
"Further research on the effects of gun ownership on public health will provide more evidence of its deadly consequences," he said, noting that severe mental illness to which mass shootings are often attributed is prevalent at similar levels in other countries where mass shootings do not occur regularly. .