So far this year, according to the publication, there have been 23 toddler-involved shooting in the United States. Through the first four months of 2016, toddler-involved shootings are up almost 28 percent; since April 20, American toddlers have shot seven people, including a Milwaukee women who died after sustaining a gunshot wound from her 2-year-old son.
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The next day, a 26-year-old Milwaukee woman was accidentally shot to death by her two-year-old child, who found a loaded gun in the back seat of the auto while the woman was driving. Both Texas and Missouri have at least seven, and Florida and MI are tied at six shootings each.
That same day, a 3-year-old boy in Grout Township, Mich., shot himself in the arm with a gun he found at home. According to Christopher Ingraham, this is already five accidents more than during the same period in 2015.
California and NY are two high-population states that have seen only three toddler shootings between them since 2015.
This suggests that other factors may be at play in the states that see disproportionately high numbers of shootings by toddlers. Surprisingly, Illinois, home to extremely high rates of gun violence has not reported any such occurrences since 2015. This has led to speculation that regional attitudes towards gun ownership may be the most important contributing factor in toddler shootings. However, New York has no such laws at all, yet has experienced only one toddler shooting since early 2015.
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The Post notes that pinpointing the exact cause of the shootings is hard because Congress has sharply limited the Centers for Disease Control’s ability to conduct research on the public health crisis of gun violence. That’s no longer the case.
