Kids in the Line of Fire

• Ranked 6th in rate of children murdered with a handgun, 1.69 per 100,000
• Ranked 11th in rate of children who murder with a handgun, 1.14 per 100,000
• Ranked 9th in percentage of child murders involving a handgun, 57.3 percent

Children and Handgun Homicides

For the five-year period of 1995 through 1999, 102 children aged 1 to 17 years were the victims of handgun homicide in Arizona. Of these children, 29.0 percent were murdered by another child with a handgun, where the ages were known (18 out of 62 incidents).

Race of Child Handgun Homicide Victims

Child handgun homicide victims whose race and ethnicity was identified (99 victims) included: 60 Hispanic victims, 27 white (non-Hispanic) victims, 7 black (non-Hispanic) victims, 4 Native American (non-Hispanic) victims, and 1 Asian (non-Hispanic) victim.

Victim to Offender Relationship

Where the relationship was known, 11.3 percent of child victims were killed by a family member with a handgun (9 out of 80). Of these victims, 77.8 percent were children murdered by a parent. None of the children were murdered by a stepparent. Overall, another 22.5 percent were killed by an acquaintance (8 victims), and 20.0 percent were killed by a friend or romantic partner (boyfriend, girlfriend, or homosexual partner) (16 victims). The largest percentage of child victims, 43.8 percent, were killed by strangers (35 victims).

Homicide Victims and Weapons

For homicides in which the weapon could be identified, 71.4 percent of child victims (125 out of 175) were shot and killed with a gun. Of those, 81.6 percent (102 victims) were killed with a handgun. For homicides where both the victim and the shooter were children, 65.8 percent of incidents involved a firearm (25 out of 33), with 72.0 percent of those involving a handgun (18 victims).

Homicide Victims and Circumstance

From 1995 to 1999, there were 82 incidents in which the circumstance of the handgun homicide of the child victim could be identified. Of these, 90.2 percent were not related to the commission of any other felony.

Where the number of victims and offenders was known, 72.5 percent of incidents involved one victim and one offender (58 incidents), 16.3 percent of the homicides involved one victim and multiple offenders (13 incidents), 10.0 percent involved multiple victims and one offender (8 incidents), and 1.3 percent involved multiple victims and multiple offenders (1 incident).

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