Everytown Releases New Research Highlighting 2023 as Worst Year for Unintentional Shootings by Children, Vermont Ranks Above the National Average for Frequency of These Preventable Tragedies from 2015-2023

BURLINGTON, VT – Everytown for Gun Safety has released new data highlighting the devastating rise in unintentional shootings by children, finding that 2023 had the highest number of incidents since Everytown started tracking them in 2015. In fact, the annual number of unintentional shootings by children surpassed 400 for the first time since Everytown began its tracking. Everytown’s research also shows that Vermont had the 15th highest rate of these preventable tragedies from 2015 to 2023. 

In 2023, Vermont enacted a gun violence prevention package that included a secure storage requirement for firearms in homes with children or people legally prohibited from possessing firearms. It also included measures to enact a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases, expand Vermont’s Extreme Risk law to allow family and household members to directly petition courts to temporarily limit access to guns by people in crisis, crack down on straw purchases and tampering with firearm serial numbers, invest in community violence prevention programs that address the root causes of violence, and more. 

Roughly once every day in the United States, a child under the age of 18 gains access to a loaded gun and unintentionally shoots themself or someone else. Everytown’s #NotAnAccident Index is a unique database that has tracked more than 3,200 of these shootings by children from 2015 to 2023, resulting in more than 1,200 people killed and more than 2,000 people wounded. 

“Every unintentional shooting because a child got access to a loaded firearm is tragic, and preventable,” said Christine Mitchell Adams, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action and a volunteer with the Be SMART program in Vermont. “We have the tools to keep firearms away from children and save lives – one of the most important ones being secure storage of these deadly weapons. With the Be SMART program, we’re educating people on how to do so, and how to make sure that everyone around them is doing it too. This is how we save lives.” 

Key findings from the new data include:

• The two age groups most likely to unintentionally shoot themself or others are high schoolers between the ages of 14 and 17, followed by preschoolers ages five and younger.
• The victims of shootings by children are most often also children. Over nine in 10 of those wounded or killed in unintentional shootings by children were also under 18 years old.
• Nearly one in every three unintentional shooters were five years old and younger. Over one thousand toddlers and preschoolers since 2015 have come upon a loaded firearm and shot themself or someone else.   
• When children unintentionally shoot another person, the victim is most often a sibling or a friend.
• More than seven in 10 unintentional child shootings occur in or around homes.
• Unintentional shootings occur most frequently at times when children are likely to be home: over the weekend and in the summer.
• Handguns account for the bulk of gun types accessed by children in unintentional shootings. 
• The states with the highest rates of unintentional shootings by children — Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, and Alabama — have weak or no firearm storage laws, while the states with the lowest rates all have storage laws — Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and California.
• 2023 saw the highest number of incidents (411), injuries (270) and total victims (427).

This one-of-a-kind dataset allows us to identify solutions. Knowing that these shootings largely occur in and around homes and on weekends and over the summer—when children are likely to be home—points to secure firearm storage as a critical answer. Unintentional shootings by children are not accidents, as they are almost always preventable with secure firearm storage practices, awareness, and policies. These avoidable tragedies cause physical and emotional suffering that persists far beyond the initial incident and leave scars on people far beyond the immediate families of those involved. 

Research shows the most effective way to prevent an unintentional shooting is to make sure firearms are stored as securely as possible. That means unloaded, locked, and separate from ammunition. Firearms are not stored securely when they’re placed in an unlocked dresser or nightstand drawer, under a couch cushion, mattress, or pillow, in an unlocked closet, on a high shelf or on top of the refrigerator. 

Be SMART, a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, helps parents and other adults normalize conversations about gun safety and take responsible actions that can prevent child gun deaths and injuries, youth suicide, and gunfire on school grounds. 

The program encourages parents and adults to: 

• Secure all guns in their home and vehicles
• Model responsible behavior around guns
• Ask about the presence of unsecured guns in other homes
• Recognize the role of guns in suicide
• Tell your peers to be SMART

Gun owners must store all of their guns securely at all times; parents need to ask about guns and gun storage at any home their children will be visiting; schools, the medical community, gun shops and gun storage device sellers, and others play a vital role in educating the community about secure gun storage; and community members need to support laws that research has shown are effective in holding adults accountable for failing to store their firearms securely. Read more on solutions to this devastating trend here. For more information on secure firearm storage and the most effective ways to protect children from unsecured firearms, visit BeSMARTforkids.org.
In an average year, 77 people die and 65 are wounded by guns in Vermont. Gun violence costs Vermont $953.3 million each year, of which $8.7 million is paid by taxpayers. More information on gun violence in Vermont can be found here.