(Washington) American states that have softened their legislation on firearms have recorded thousands of more children who died more, especially by homicide and suicide, that they did not normally, according to a study published on Monday.
If wearing weapons is considered a constitutional right in the United States, each state can develop it with more or less strict regulations. And when, in 2010, the Supreme Court judged that the second amendment could be opposed to local states and communities, most chose to soften the conditions of access to arms.
“Mortality due to car accidents has dropped spectacularly, but at the same time, mortality due to firearms has increased and replaced car accidents as the main cause of death in children over a year,” Jeremy Faust told AFP at the head of the study published in the Jama Pediatrics medical journal.
According to this emergency doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, this is a unique trend among countries comparable to the United States.
For this study, his team carried out an “mortality analysis”, comparing the real dead from 2011 to 2023 to projections based on previous trends from 1999 to 2010, while taking into account the growth of the population.
The results are striking: in the states that have softened their legislation on firearms, more than 7,400 deaths of children per more firearm have been recorded, including 6000 in the group of the most lax.
By comparison, the strictest eight states have generally known any excess mortality.
And if the study cannot prove the existence of an indisputable cause and effect link between the dead and softened laws, it highlights enlightening data.
The researchers, for example, analyzed homicides and suicides without a gun and found no significant increase there.
In addition, black children have experienced the highest increase, the study issuing the hypothesis of a social disparity in the more or less secure location of weapons in homes.
The researchers also noted exceptions: the number of deaths increased in Illinois and Connecticut despite more strict laws, the dead being, in the second case, mainly due to a mass killing in a school in 2012.
