Child Watch Column? PROTECT CHILDREN, NOT GUNS
As the nation's mayors met in Washington, D.C. in January to discuss solutions to gun violence at their annual conference, the Children's Defense Fund released Protect Children, Not Guns 2007, our new annual report that details how each and every day we continue to lose children and teens to senseless gun violence in towns, cities, and rural areas all across America. The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows in 2004 alone the gun death toll for children and teens in the United States was 2,825, more than the total number of American servicemen and women who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since those wars began through December 2006. Every day, nearly eight children or teens are killed by gun violence in Who are these young victims? They were all ages, from all backgrounds, and all parts of the country. In 2004, 58 preschoolers were killed by firearms, while 57 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. Sixty percent of the children and teens killed were White; 37 percent were Black. More boys are victims of gun violence, but girls aren’t immune: the number of girls killed by firearms rose from 325 in 2003 to 387 in 2004, a 19 percent increase. Firearm deaths of children and teens went up more than 10 percent in six states— Some progress has definitely been made. Firearm deaths of children and teens have dropped from 15 a day in the peak year of 1994. But eight children and teens dying each day is a moral outrage. Since 1979 gun violence has snuffed out the lives of 101,413 children and teens in We need to build on the current initiative of more than 120 Parents should remove guns from their homes, organize nonviolent conflict resolution support groups in their congregations and communities, and refuse to buy video games and other products for their children and teens that glamorize violence or make violence socially acceptable or fun. And all Americans must call for a national commitment against gun terrorism in
Marian Wright Edelman is President and Founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose Leave No Child Behind? mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. |
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