The United States closed 2022 with an alarming toll of firearm violence affecting young people. According to the Gun Violence Archive, the nonprofit has tracked this statistic since 2014, and the year stands as the highest on record for injuries and fatalities among children and teens.
In total, 1,631 minors were shot during 2022, a year shadowed by the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, as reported by the organization in its recent release.
Of those cases, 4,400 involved minor victims who suffered non-fatal gun injuries.
Compared with prior years, the year marked a sharp rise, with 324 more children harmed than in 2021, the first year for which data were widely collected, and 3,111 more than in 2014.
Overall, firearm violence claimed 43,675 lives in 2022, with suicides accounting for 23,826 of those deaths.
The dataset also logged 639 multi-person incidents, defined by the archive as events involving four or more people in addition to the shooter.
In May, a mass shooting in Buffalo, carried out by an 18-year-old white supremacist, left ten people dead, most of them Black, by a shooter armed with a semi-automatic rifle.
Days later, another 18-year-old used a semi-automatic rifle to attack a school in Uvalde, Texas, resulting in the deaths of 19 students and two teachers before police stopped the assailant.
These incidents intensified a national conversation, and in June Congress approved a historic treaty aimed at tightening firearm controls for buyers under 21, reflecting a broader push to curb gun access among younger individuals.
The agreement also expanded the country’s Red Flag laws to the national level, building on existing measures in states such as California, New York, and Florida. These laws permit authorities to seize firearms when a person is deemed a danger to themselves or others, potentially preventing imminent harm.