From 1999-2015, 428 Wisconsin children were killed with guns. “To wrap your head around that number, it’s really pretty staggering to think about,” says Tamarine Cornelius, a research analyst at Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. “Children in Wisconsin are killed with guns – that’s both a huge thing and a small thing. But even just to say that, it’s taking a step in the addressing the problem that children in Wisconsin are killed with guns. Every year, on average, it’s just under two a month.”
The numbers of deaths of children are still well below the levels a decade ago, but recent trends since 2010 threaten to undo the progress that’s been made.
“If we want to keep making progress like we were before then we need to think about what we are going to do moving forward,” Cornelius tells Madison365. “Doing nothing is not going to get us there.”
Cornelius is the author of a new report, “Death Toll: Wisconsin Children Killed With Guns,” that found that in 2015, 20 children in Wisconsin were killed with guns, or about one child every 18 days on average.
“There’s good news and bad news from the report,” she says. “The good news is that the number of children killed with guns now is considerably less than a decade ago but the bad news is that the progress we have made has stalled.”
It’s part of a national trend that started in 2010, Cornelius says, where everything shifted from making big strides in protecting children from guns to a leveling off of the numbers.
research analyst for Wisconsin Council on Children and Families
“The challenge is that because federal funding into gun violence at the national level has been blocked. We know a little bit about what works in terms of keeping people safe, but sometimes there are more questions than answers,” she says. “Why did we make so much progress and then why did we stop making that progress? We need to look more into those questions, but lawmakers have chosen to block further research into those question which could make a difference in helping to keep kids safe.”
At one point in time, Wisconsin had been making significant headway in keeping children safe from firearms – between 1999 and 2009, for example, the number of children killed with guns dropped by more than a third. In 2010, that rate leveled off where it has consistently been since.
The low point in Wisconsin was reached in 2008 when only 13 children were killed with guns. “Realistically, we can get down to zero,” Cornelius says. “That’s a realistic goal. But we need to make some changes to do that.”
But let’s get back to 2010. What exactly happened in 2010 to stunt that positive trajectory?
“I don’t know how much of a line you can draw. In some places, there has been wholesale loosening of gun laws and a corresponding increase in gun deaths … like in Missouri,” she says. “In most places, it’s not that clear cut so I would really hesitate to draw some of the obvious conclusions that are really tempted to drawn based upon what happened in 2010 in terms of the political climate.”
According to the new report, Wisconsin ranks in the middle of all states in the number of children gun deaths. However, the Badger state ranks seventh among states for gun deaths for African-American children per capita. Wisconsin’s death rate for African American children killed with firearms was 38 percent higher than the national average over this period.
“The majority of the children who die who are killed by guns are white. That being said, black children are more at risk because their rates are higher,” Cornelius says. “Black children are more at risk for being killed by homicide whereas white children are more likely to be killed by suicide. They require different solutions.
“For black children, we need to make sure that we are working to expand economic opportunity for everybody and to promote policies that reinforce safe and stable neighborhoods,” she adds. “To address the problem with white children we need to make sure that kids can get access to mental health services when they need them.”
Older children are the most likely to be killed with guns, but even the youngest children have been victims, the report states. Fifteen children in Wisconsin ages four years and younger were killed with firearms between 1999 and 2015, about one child a year. Another 14 children who were five to nine years old died over this period. The remainder of the children who died were ages 10 or older, with the majority of deaths (72 percent) occurring among children ages 15 to 17.
“Like I said before, zero is a realistic goal,” Cornelius contends. “We need to know more about how to reduce numbers and we need to make sure that we continue to have the resources to know more.
“Sometimes you explain it to people: ‘No, federal lawmakers have actually blocked funding to make sure that we know how we can reduce gun deaths for children.’ It’s crazy to say it like that, but that’s what has happened,” she adds.
More research is needed to identify the most effective strategies to protect children, the report states, but federal lawmakers have long refused to allocate funds to study the causes of gun violence and the best ways to prevent gun deaths. Additional research could help identify the reasons behind both the long-term decline in the number of child fatalities and the recent lack of progress.
Several different approaches need to be taken, Cornelius says. “Safe neighborhoods and access to mental health are keys. Another thing we need to work to prevent is accidental shootings,” she says. “We need to work to make sure that we keep guns out of the hands of children who either kill themselves or kill somebody else.
“It’s all doable. We have to look at the problem in the face,” she continues. “Children in Wisconsin are shot and killed with guns. Admitting it exists is the first step to fixing the problem.”
