Kids in the Line of Fire

• Ranked 4th in rate of children murdered with a handgun, 2.19 per 100,000
• Ranked 6th in rate of children who murder with a handgun, 1.25 per 100,000
• Ranked 4th in percentage of child murders involving a handgun, 62.3 percent

Children and Handgun Homicides

For the five-year period of 1995 through 1999, 968 children aged 1 to 17 years were the victims of handgun homicide in California. Of these children, 68.8 percent were murdered by another child with a handgun, where the ages were known (179 out of 260 incidents).

Race of Child Handgun Homicide Victims

Child handgun homicide victims whose race and ethnicity was identified (902 victims) included: 563 Hispanic victims, 61 white (non-Hispanic) victims, 205 black (non-Hispanic) victims, 72 Asian (non-Hispanic) victims, and 1 Native American (non-Hispanic) victim.

Victim to Offender Relationship

Where the relationship was known, 5.7 percent of child victims were killed by a family member with a handgun (40 out of 698). Of these victims, 70.0 percent were children murdered by a parent. An additional 5.0 percent of the child victims were murdered by a stepparent. Overall, another 36.7 percent were killed by strangers (256 victims) and 7.2 percent were killed by a friend or romantic partner (boyfriend, girlfriend, or homosexual partner) (50 victims). The largest percentage of child victims, 50.4 percent, were killed by an acquaintance (352 victims).

Homicide Victims and Weapons

For homicides in which the weapon could be identified, 72.8 percent of child victims (1,110 out of 1,524) were shot and killed with a gun. Of those, 87.2 percent (968 victims) were killed with a handgun. For homicides where both the victim and the shooter were children, 79.2 percent of incidents involved a firearm (206 out of 260), with 86.9 percent of those involving a handgun (179 victims).

Homicide Victims and Circumstance

From 1995 to 1999, there were 888 incidents in which the circumstance of the handgun homicide of the child victim could be identified. Of these, 90.8 percent were not related to the commission of any other felony.

Where the number of victims and offenders was known, 58.3 percent of incidents involved one victim and one offender (325 incidents), 34.6 percent of the homicides involved one victim and multiple offenders (193 incidents), 5.2 percent involved multiple victims and one offender (29 incidents), and 1.8 percent involved multiple victims and multiple offenders (10 incidents).

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