Toddlers Have Shot One Person A Week So Far This Year

After scouring reports from around the country, Christopher Ingraham found at least 43 instances in which toddlers – defined as children between 1-3 years old – picked up a gun and shot either themselves or another person.

While these seem like isolated incidents, a new survey by The Washington Post shows they happen far more often that we might think – about once a week.

In a thorough review of the toddler-initiated gun deaths this year, The Washington Post uncovered the shocking fact that “roughly once a week this year, on average, a small child has found a gun, pointed it at himself or someone else, and pulled the trigger”.

When a mass shooting occurs, it is plastered across the front pages of newspapers everywhere.

Missouri had the highest rate with five toddler shootings yet it has relatively lax gun laws – there is no need to have a permit to buy a gun, or to have a license to own one. Florida has had four and Texas has had three. California, the most populous state in the nation, hasn’t had any.

New England or the Upper Midwest haven’t experienced any toddlers firing guns at themselves or others by accident. And there are probably many more cases where a little kid inadvertently shoots a gun and doesn’t hit anyone, resulting in little more than a scared kid and (hopefully) chastened parents.

To put it in perspective, Gawker noted that Japan had six gun fatalities for all of 2014 and 11 in 2007, meaning American toddlers have killed nearly as many people this year as people with guns did in two years in Japan. Of those 43 cases, in 31 of them the toddler found a gun and shot his or herself. But I haven’t included those figures here.

It’s also believed that there could be numerous other cases that go unreported due to minor injuries that the media isn’t aware of.

Gun control in the United States is something that desperately needs addressing – fast.

This is just another eye-opening account of what guns have done to America.

The National Rifle Association did not immediately return the Daily News’ request for comment.

Which side do you take in the gun policy? “Keeping guns out of the hands of the people who shouldn’t have them, including toddlers”. Or, you might reason that stuff happens, and that this is part of the price we must pay to protect our gun rights.