Gun-related violence is becoming so widespread across Texas that the number of young people who die of gunshot wounds has tripled over the last decade.
The number of people under the age of 18 killed by guns in Texas has gone up from 96 in 2012 to 297 in 2022, according to new data from the Texas Department of State Health Services reviewed by The Texas Tribune.
In 2020, gunshots became the leading cause of death for Texas youths. That year, 263 young people lost their lives to guns.
Physicians and gun safety advocates say the rate will continue to increase without intervention and attention.
"You're watching this like it's a pandemic starting to take off, and you want to intervene now so to head off further increases," Dr. Jeffrey Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Tribune.
Of the 297 young people who died last year, most of them were teens between the ages of 12 and 17 -- but 49 were children 11 or younger. It's the largest number of children to die from gunshots in the state, according to The Tribune report. The data also shows that Black youths are twice as likely to die from gunshots than white and Hispanic youths.
"We really have to think about what kind of world we want to live in when our children and teens don't feel safe anywhere," Dr. Lois Lee, who leads research efforts in pediatric firearm injury prevention, told The Tribune.
The numbers include homicides, suicides, accidental shootings and all other undetermined firearm-related causes of death.