Graffagnino: Firearms statistics are evidence of crisis in U.S.

Your article, “School arrests on rise again this year,” has motivated me to write once more regarding the effects of gun violence in America.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has long been an advocate regarding this issue. Note the following information about homicides by firearms per 1 million people: Australia has 1.4 per 1 million people, Germany has 1.9, Sweden has 4.1, Canada has 5.1, and the United States has 29.7.

Likewise in the United States, the firearm mortality rate involving kids is 6 per 100,000 children. (Note: This is not out of a million but 100,000.) These numbers come from the Human Development Index for 2012. There are 14 countries listed with the aforementioned statistics.

A prominent pediatrician recently stated, “Children in the U.S. die at 10 times the rate of the second-highest nation in the civilized world. For the first time in history, firearms now kill more children than motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. Research studies show that there are effective ways of dealing with that. Other countries have done so. We, as a country, are clearly not as smart as the rest of the world.”

Peter Graffagnino

Bridgeville

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