Children in NC are 51% more likely to die from gun violence than national average, report finds
On Monday, the North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force released its annual report. Homicides and suicides increased sharply compared to the year before, the report found.
Posted — UpdatedHomicides and suicides in 2021 were both up sharply over the year before – higher than ever - and most of them involved guns.
In 2021, the report found 93 children in North Carolina who died of homicide and 62 died of suicide.
“If you look at the combined number of the 2021 suicides and homicides, firearms were the lethal means used in more than 70% of those deaths,” said North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force Executive Director Kella Hatcher.
Hatcher said the spike in children’s firearm deaths started in 2020, when many people purchased guns in response to the pandemic and the civil unrest over the murder of George Floyd.
A CDC student survey found 30% of kids in North Carolina said they could obtain and be ready to fire a loaded gun within an hour – without a parent’s permission.
The North Carolina Child Fatality Task Force is a commission that studies deaths among people younger than 18 years old and advocates for ways to prevent them.
The task force is asking lawmakers once again to take action to keep guns out of children’s hands.
Research shows most children who use a gun to commit suicide get that gun from their home. Hatcher said some simple precautions could help prevent that.
“When we talk about firearm safe storage, I think a lot of people tend to think about toddlers and young children and curious young children and keeping them safe, but what they perhaps fail to think about is those older kids and those older kids who may be at risk of harming themselves or others,” Hatcher said.
For several years, the task force has asked state lawmakers to fund a safe firearm storage awareness campaign. Hatcher is hoping this will be the year they act.
Hatcher said the campaign would pay for community outreach initiatives to promote safe storage. It would also fund free gun locks for gun owners.
Hatcher said the task force is also asking for more funding for school nurses, psychiatrists, counselors and social workers. North Carolina is extremely understaffed in those areas.
“They're not only the ones that can potentially identify kids who may be at risk, or who are in crisis and work with them individually, but they're also the ones that can connect them to community resources,” Hatcher said.
Other recommendations from the report include:
- Launch a statewide firearm safe storage education and awareness initiative
- Recurring funds to increase numbers of school nurses, social workers, counselors and psychologists
- Implementing a statewide electronic school health data system. Schools are required to provide certain health-related services and to keep records about those services. There is no universal system for recordkeeping of health data for North Carolina schools. Plus, some schools still use hard copy records.
- Strengthening and restricting the statewide Child Fatality Prevention System
- Funding to expand efforts to prevent infant deaths related to unsafe sleeping environments
- Medicaid funding to support maternal health care strategies known to produce better birth outcomes
- Strengthening North Carolina's Infant Safe Surrender Law. The task force identified four areas of the law that need to be strengthened ot make it more likely the law will be used in circumstances for which it was intended: To protect newborn infant at risk of abandonment or harm.
- Strengthening North Carolina’s passenger safety law to address best practices for safety. North Carolina’s child passenger safety law differs from the best practice recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Evidence shows children are more likely to ride in the recommended type of child restraint when their state’s law includes wording that follows best practice recommendations.
- Funding to enable comprehensive toxicology testing in child deaths
- Funding for programs to prevent harms to youth and infants caused by tobacco or nicotine use
- Requiring lifeguards at children’s day camps that offer time in the water
The report found the overall child death rate in the state for ages 0-17 was 59.1 per 100,000 resident children. It’s the highest rate since 2016, according to the report.
House and Senate lawmakers have filed several safe storage bills already this session.
The Senate passed that measure earlier this month, but the House hasn't taken it up yet.
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