Too Many Children Have Died

Guns are now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the U.S.

Too many children have died.

It is impossible to relay an accurate number of school shootings as they have become commonplace in our society and the number rises too quickly to precisely report on. If you visit https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting you can scroll through more than fifteen pages of twenty-one listings each to see where these school shootings occurred, how many children died, and how many were injured in 2022 alone.

The nation’s drug overdose epidemic continues to change and worsen. The epidemic affects every state and now is driven by illicit fentanyl, fentanyl analogs, methamphetamine, and cocaine, often in combination or in adulterated forms. (https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/issue-brief-increases-in-opioid-related-overdose.pdf)

Fatal drug overdoses among adolescents nearly doubled from 492 in 2019 to 954 in 2020, an increase of 94%. There was an additional 20% rise in 2021 compared to the previous year. The highest rates were among Native American and Alaskan Native teens, followed by Latino teens. (https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/12/1092309418/teen-drug-overdose-deaths-rose-sharply-in-2020-driven-by-fentanyl-laced-pills)