Children and Firearms

• Firearms are the second-leading cause of death (after motor vehicle accidents) for young people 19 and under in the U.S.
  

Source: WISQARS, Leading Causes of Death and Injury Mortality Reports Database,
National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control.

• Each year from 1993 to 1997, gun murders were committed by 1,621 killers under
  the age of 18.
  

Source: Supplemental Homicide Data from the FBI.

• "The firearm injury epidemic, due largely to handgun injuries, is 10 times larger than the polio epidemic of the first half of this century."

Source: Christoffel, Katherine Kaufer,
"Handguns and the Environments of Children",
Children's Environments, 12(1), 1995, p. 42.

• More children and young adults die from suicide each year than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, and chronic lung disease combined.

Source: U.S. Congress

Women and Firearms

• Most women are killed by their intimate partners and over two-thirds are killed by guns.
  

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the U.S.: Intimate Homicide. USDOJ

• In 1998, women were 101 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a handgun to kill in self-defense. Women were 302 times more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to use a handgun to kill a stranger in self-defense. Women were 83 times more likely to be murdered by an intimate acquaintance with a handgun than to kill an intimate acquaintance in self-defense.
  

Source: Violence Policy Center,
A Deadly Myth: Women, Handguns, and Self-Defense.
Washington, D.C., 2001, 2-3.

Successful Suicides Happen with Guns

• In 2001, gun-related completed suicides accounted for 16,869 (57%) of all gun related deaths in the U. S.: that's 46 lives every day that are lost to gun violence.
  

Source: National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 52, No. 3,
National Center for Health Statistics(NCHS),
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
September 25, 2003.

• A gun in the home is 11 times more likely to be used in an attempted suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

Source: Kellermann AL,
Injuries and Deaths due to Firearms in the Home,
Journal of Trauma, 1998; 45(2):263-67.

Costs

• The Annual Bill To The Nation Annual costs of gun violence in the US have been estimated at between $100 billion and $126 billion.

Source: Miller and Cohen, passim.