A new report from the Center for American Progress finds that gun violence could soon become the leading cause of death among young people:
In 2010, 6,201 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 died by gunfire. Guns were a close second to the leading cause of death among this age group, car accidents, which took the lives of 7,024 young people that year. But, while car accident deaths among young people have been steadily declining over the past decade, gun deaths have remained relatively unchanged. And, as described in a new Center for American Progress report [pdf] released Friday, if current trends continue, gun deaths will surpass car accident deaths among young people sometime in 2015[.]
Zara Kessler reads the report and adds some context:
More than half — 54 percent — of Americans murdered with guns in 2010 were younger than 30. Among 15- to 24-year-olds murdered with guns, 65 percent were black. Adulthood not delayed, but stolen. In addition, in 2010, 33,519 individuals ages 17 to 29 survived being intentionally shot. Disabilities, physical and emotional scars – those last for life.
Low levels of household formation among young Americans may be a troubling portent for the nation’s financial health. But not nearly as disturbing as the annual loss of more than 1 million years of potential life due to gun deaths. (Quite a few unformed households, to say the least.)
Because young people also perpetrate a substantial portion of gun violence, millennial lives are destroyed on both sides of the muzzle. In 2012, people under 29 accounted for about two-thirds of arrests on weapons offenses. Almost 5,000 12- to 24-year-olds were arrested in 2011 for homicides, and guns were implicated in about 70 percent of the murders. It costs taxpayers (who have already paid to educate the perpetrators) about $2 million to imprison someone for life beginning in his or her late teens. Not much economic stimulus there.
The Dish 