From an eye opening NPR article "The US is uniquely terrible at protecting children from gun violence", this table:
What are the equivalent figures in Australia, I wondered. I can't find a site that lumps all children up to 19 together, but there is this:
You would have to suspect that an awful lot of the third column is made up of 20 to 24 year olds. I strongly suspect that the Australian death rate for up to 19 year olds might be around 3 to 4 per 100,000, and therefore below that of the US. But how substantially below - I don't know.
PS: on another positive note (for Australia, at least), it's surprising to read of the reduction in youth deaths overall in the period 1999 to 2019:
Between 1999 and 2019, among young people aged 15–24:
- the death rate fell by 44%, from 72 deaths per 100,000 young people in 1999 to 41 deaths per 100,000 in 2019
- the rate fell for both males (down 46%, from 105 to 57 per 100,000) and females (down 39%, from 38 to 23)
- the rate fell by 45% across both age groups: for those aged 15–19, from 59 to 32 deaths per 100,000; for those aged 20–24, 86 to 48 deaths per 100,000
I don't know the explanation for that....
Update: I just thought to look up the rate of children killed by firearms in Australia. Haven't found it yet, but there is a study showing the rate of childhood injuries from firearms (not deaths) in NSW in a recent period is .8 per 100,000 population. The rate of actual death from those injuries would, of course, be substantially lower.
1 comment:
disgraceful
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