In response to:
* Approximately 4 million children and adolescents are injured at school each year.
* More than 1 million serious sports-related injuries occur each year to adolescents aged 10-17 years.
* In 2005, firearms (overwhelming majority handguns) were the mechanism of injury in approximately 84% of homicides and 46% of suicides among children and adolescents aged 5-19 years.
* From 1997 to 2002, 9,622 child passengers aged 0 to 14 years died in motor vehicle crashes. Of these children, 2,335 (24%) were killed in crashes involving drinking drivers, and 68% of the deaths occurred while the child was riding with the drinking driver.
CAPITOL HILL -- During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill about how to prevent gun violence, Senior Fellow of the Independent Women’s Forum Gayle Trotter was loudly heckled by anti-gun advocates in the crowd after she suggested women need firearms to protect young children in their homes.
"An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies at her home becomes a defense weapon,” Trotter said as jeers erupted. “Guns are the great equalizer during a violent confrontation.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse attempted to lecture Trotter about the type...
0.012%: The number of deaths associated with "assault weapons."
* 48% from motor vehicle injuries (occupants and pedestrians combined)
* 21% from all other unintentional injuries
* 16% from homicides
* 14% from suicides
Among children and adolescents aged 5 to 19 years:
* 68% of unintentional injury deaths are due to motor vehicle crashes
* Traffic-related injuries also include those sustained while walking, riding a bicycle, or riding a motorcycle
* In 2005, 29% of motor vehicle-related deaths were bicyclists.