![]() His body went into shock, but when he gathered the strength to open one of his eyes, he stared into the barrel of another gun, this time from the Baltimore police. The summer before he started his senior year of high school in 2005, DeJuan Patterson, now 29, was walking home from work when he was approached by a man who robbed him of his belongings and then shot him in the head. gun violence has led to the number of gun deaths among young people between the ages of 15 to 29 to rise, with 11,947 individuals in this age group dying as the result of gun violence in 2016. In contrast, years of relative inaction to reduce U.S. Following decades of advocacy and policymaking to make automobiles and driving safer, the number of young people killed in car accidents has steadily declined. Gun violence recently surpassed motor vehicle accidents as a leading killer of young people in the United States and was second only to drug overdose. Young people in this age range accounted for 31 percent of all gun deaths in 2016 and nearly 50 percent of all gun-related homicides. 8 However, looking only at deaths caused by gunfire, the picture changes dramatically. ![]() 7 Of these 2.7 million deaths, only 2.2 percent were individuals between the ages of 15 and 29. Consider 2016: That year, more than 2.7 million people in the United States died, with the top-three leading causes of death being heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injuries. Young people make up a very small percentage of all deaths in the United States each year. This report also highlights examples of young people leading the advocacy efforts around this issue and discusses a number of policy solutions that are crucial to reducing gun violence, reforming the criminal justice system, improving police-community relations, and encouraging reinvestment in impacted communities. It examines the specific impact of gun violence on young people and considers both how young people as a collective are disproportionately affected and how different communities of young people share different aspects of the burden of this violence. This report breaks down how gun violence is affecting young people, and how young activists are rising to build an intersectional movement working for solutions. They are advocating not only for solutions to make schools safer from mass shootings but also for holistic and intersectional solutions that will help make all communities safer. ![]() These young people do not just want to reform gun laws-they are also demanding that the issue of gun violence be examined as part of a complex and intersectional web of issues that also include community disinvestment, criminal justice reform, and policing. Louis, have all lent their voices to an increasingly loud call to action. Organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement survivors of the Parkland shooting youth organizers working in cities hardest hit by gun violence, such as Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Young people are not simply victims of gun violence in this country, they are among the leading voices calling for change to the nation’s weak gun laws and deadly gun culture. In short, gun violence is shattering a generation. The United States’ gun violence epidemic disproportionately ravages young people, particularly young people of color. These stories of gun violence are all too common among young Americans. 6 Nineteen- year-old student Eli Saldana, a member of the Native American community living in Chicago, was shot on his walk home from work. ![]() 5 Oregon youth mentor Jes Phillip’s siblings have all had close calls-she has three younger sisters who were present at the Reynolds High School shooting in Troutdale, Oregon, and two bullets landed next to her brother’s bed when they came through her family’s apartment wall during a neighborhood shooting. 4 Nevada activist Mariam El-Haj witnessed the shooting of her mother by her estranged father, who then turned the gun on Mariam. saw his brother shot in front of their neighbor’s home. When he was just 6 years old, Missouri State Rep. For each bullet fired, there are multiple stories of lives changed forever. The epidemic of gun violence against America’s youth is more than just a disturbing data point. ![]()
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