Child gun death rate not dropping in Wisconsin

Community violence and mental health are among factors.

The effort to fight the rate of gun deaths among children in Wisconsin has stalled in recent years.

That’s one of the findings of a new report from the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.

The number of children killed by guns in the state had dropped until 2010 but that’s when the rate leveled off.

In 2015, the number of child gun deaths was 20, according to the group. That’s a number on par with recent years but with no decline, which points to a lack of progress, says researcher Tamarine Cornelius. 

Cornelius says the first step is to acknowledge that a couple dozen children dying by gunfire in the state every year is a problem.

“So we’ve made significant headway in keeping children safe from guns,” Cornelius said. “But, the progress we’ve made has stalled.”

Cornelius added that gun deaths are roughly split evenly between murders and suicides, pointing to a need for mental health advances among children, as well as dealing with social factors where the murders occur.

“There’s no one solution that’s going to fix this problem, in part because the causes are so different,” she said. “We need to make sure we address community violence. We also need to address mental health issues.”

Wisconsin ranks in the middle of all states in the number of children gun deaths but seventh among states for African-American children.  

Among other things, the report found that boys made up more than 80 percent of gun deaths, and the death rate among black children is 38 percent higher than the national average.