(NEW YORK) – A look at the level of gun violence in the U.S. through statistics.
More than 6,000 children have been killed or injured in the United States by gunfire in 2022, the most ever recorded in the nine-year history of a nonprofit that tracks shooting incidents.
With five days to go in the year, the Gun Violence Archive found that 6,023 U.S. children 17 years old or younger have been killed or hurt in gunfire this year, surpassing the 5,708 killed or hurt 2021.
The Gun Violence Archive said it was the most children to die or be injured by gunfire in a single year since it started keeping track in 2014.
At least 306 children 11 years old or younger have been killed by gunfire in 2022, according to the website. Another 1,323 children between the ages of 12 and 17 died in shootings, according to the website.
In the first year the Gun Violence Archive began to track shootings in 2014, it recorded 2,859 children 17 years old or younger killed or injured by gunfire.
The grim statistics come after a 3-year-old girl in Kansas City, Missouri, was killed on Christmas Eve in what police suspect was an accidental shooting, Kansas City ABC affiliate KMBC reported.
The child shooting deaths in 2022 also include 19 students, all 11 years old or younger, killed in a mass shooting on May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
One of the youngest victims killed by gunfire this year was 5-month-old Cecilia Thomas, who was shot in the head while sitting in a car in Chicago during a June 24 drive-by shooting.
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