New research from the Second Amendment Foundation uses CDC mortality data to challenge claims that firearms are the leading cause of death among American children. The findings expose how age brackets and combined death categories shape the gun-control narrative.
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New research from the Second Amendment Foundation finds that accidents killed nearly twice as many American children as firearms in 2025, exposing how gun-control groups manipulate age brackets and mortality statistics to advance their agenda.
SAF’s analysis of provisional 2025 CDC mortality data challenges claims that firearms are the leading cause of death among American children.
The gun-control lobby has spent years telling Americans that firearms are the leading cause of death among children. A new analysis from the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s own mortality data, challenges that claim and exposes the statistical choices behind one of the anti-gun movement’s most frequently repeated talking points.
According to provisional 2025 data from the CDC WONDER mortality database, there were 2,099 firearm-related deaths among Americans ages 1 through 17. During the same period, 4,140 children in that age group died from unintentional injuries, including 97 accidental firearm deaths. Transport accidents alone accounted for 2,223 deaths, while motor-vehicle accidents accounted for 2,099, exactly matching the firearm total.
The findings come from an October 2026 SAF fact sheet prepared by Kostas Moros, the organization’s Director of Legal Research and Education. The report examines how gun-control organizations use selective age ranges, narrowly defined accident categories, and combined firearm death statistics to create a misleading impression about childhood mortality.
The analysis was prompted by an October 15 social media post from Giffords, the gun-control organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
“Guns are the leading cause of death for kids in America.”
The CDC’s official leading-cause-of-death rankings tell a different story.
Perhaps no claim has been as frequently repeated by the gun control side in recent years than “guns are the leading cause of death for kids.”
Our new Fact Sheet examines this claim in detail using the CDC’s provisional data for 2025, which is the most recent available.
The takeaway: while gun-related causes temporarily passed traffic-related causes during the crime surge years, you can only claim guns were the leading cause of death among minors if you:
1. Ignore that accidents as a combined category have always been a far greater cause of death for that age cohort; and
2. simultaneously combine all gun-related deaths regardless of intent (suicides, homicides, and accidents).
— SAF (@2AFDN) October 20, 2026
What the CDC Data Actually Shows
Using the CDC’s official National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) ranking categories, accidents were the leading cause of death among children ages 1 through 17 in 2025, accounting for 4,140 deaths. Suicide ranked second with 1,748 deaths, followed by homicide with 1,501. Cancer accounted for 1,375 deaths, while congenital malformations accounted for 951.
Firearms do not appear as a single category in those official rankings because the CDC classifies deaths by causes such as homicide, suicide, and accidental injury. Firearm involvement is recorded separately as the mechanism.
Moros’ analysis found that the 2,099 firearm-related deaths included 1,130 homicides, 800 suicides, 97 accidents, 68 deaths of undetermined intent, and fewer than 10 involving legal intervention.
Provisional 2025 CDC mortality data show 4,043 accidental deaths unrelated to firearms among children ages 1–17, compared with 2,099 firearm-related deaths from all causes. Transport accidents accounted for 2,223 deaths, while motor-vehicle accidents tied firearm fatalities at 2,099. (Chart: Second Amendment Foundation)
These distinctions are important because homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings are fundamentally different circumstances. Combining them under a single label may serve the gun-control lobby’s messaging, but it does little to explain why those deaths occurred or what would actually prevent them.
The SAF report also shows that firearm-related deaths tied motor-vehicle accidents in 2025, with 2,099 fatalities in each category. When other transportation accidents involving bicycles, boats, trains, and similar vehicles are included, the transport-related death toll rises to 2,223.
The findings do not suggest that firearm-related deaths are insignificant. They demonstrate that claiming firearms are the leading killer of American children requires ignoring important distinctions in the underlying statistics.
How Gun-Control Groups Manipulate the Numbers
One of the most revealing parts of the SAF analysis concerns who gets counted as a child.
When researchers examined Americans ages 1 through 17, the CDC recorded 2,099 firearm-related deaths in 2025. Expand that definition to include 18- and 19-year-old adults, and the total jumps to 3,754. That is an increase of 1,655 deaths simply by adding two additional age groups. 18- and 19-year-olds are legal adults. Grouping them with elementary school children allows gun-control organizations to cite a larger number while presenting the findings as a measure of childhood mortality.
Another statistical choice involves excluding infants younger than one year old. When infants are included, conditions originating during the newborn period become the leading cause of death, accounting for 9,749 deaths among those ages 0 through 17 in 2025.
The third problem is the selective comparison of different categories. Firearm fatalities are commonly combined across homicides, suicides, and accidents, then compared against motor-vehicle crashes rather than the CDC’s broader category of unintentional injuries.
SAF’s analysis challenges that methodology by examining the complete accident totals rather than selecting only the categories that make firearms appear more prominent.
This is not the first time AmmoLand has examined how firearm restrictions are promoted through questionable statistical comparisons. In previous coverage of Everytown’s attempts to influence artificial intelligence platforms, AmmoLand examined how gun-control organizations combine unrelated categories of firearm deaths to support sweeping political arguments.
Teenagers Account for 85% of Firearm Deaths Among Minors
Perhaps the most revealing finding in the SAF report concerns the difference between younger children and teenagers. Of the 2,099 firearm-related deaths among Americans ages 1 through 17, 1,793 involved teenagers ages 13 through 17. That represents approximately 85% of the total. Children ages 1 through 12 accounted for just 306 firearm-related deaths.
According to a Second Amendment Foundation analysis of provisional 2025 CDC data, teenagers ages 13–17 accounted for 1,793 of the 2,099 firearm-related deaths among minors ages 1–17, or 85%. Children ages 1–12 accounted for the remaining 306 deaths. (Chart: Second Amendment Foundation)
Among those younger children, motor-vehicle accidents accounted for 857 deaths, cancer for 850, and drowning for 641. Each category exceeded the number of firearm fatalities by a substantial margin.
The picture changes dramatically among teenagers ages 13 through 17, where firearm-related deaths included 972 homicides and 742 suicides. In that age group, firearm deaths exceeded motor-vehicle accidents, although all accidental injuries combined still accounted for more deaths.
The report also documents a significant difference in firearm mortality rates. Among children ages 10 through 12, the firearm death rate was 0.8 per 100,000. Among teenagers ages 13 through 17, it climbed to 8.2 per 100,000.
These figures expose a serious problem with the gun-control lobby’s messaging. By lumping young children and teenagers together, and combining criminal homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings into one alarming statistic, anti-gun organizations create the impression that firearms themselves are the common problem. In reality, a toddler’s accidental death, a teenager murdered by a violent criminal, and a young person who dies by suicide involve vastly different circumstances.
Yet gun-control advocates routinely use these combined statistics to demand restrictions on law-abiding Americans who had nothing to do with those deaths. Criminal violence is not an indictment of responsible gun ownership, and the misuse of a firearm by one individual does not justify stripping constitutional rights from millions of others. The Second Amendment does not contain an exception allowing the government to restrict a fundamental right simply because advocacy organizations find a particular statistical comparison politically useful.
The Numbers Have Changed Over Time
SAF’s research also examines mortality statistics from 2018 through 2025, providing historical context that is often missing from gun-control messaging.
Among Americans ages 1 through 17, firearm deaths exceeded all motor-vehicle accidents in 2021, 2022, and 2023. The two categories tied in 2025. However, firearm fatalities never exceeded the broader catego
