Kids in the Line of Fire

• Ranked 15th in rate of children murdered with a handgun, 1.08 per 100,000
• Ranked 14th in rate of children who murder with a handgun, 1.00 per 100,000
• Ranked 26th in percentage of child murders involving a handgun, 43.3 percent

Children and Handgun Homicides

For the five-year period of 1995 through 1999, 295 children aged 1 to 17 years were the victims of handgun homicide in Texas. Of these children, 36.4 percent were murdered by another child with a handgun, where the ages were known (78 out of 214 incidents).

Race of Child Handgun Homicide Victims

Child handgun homicide victims whose race and ethnicity was identified (282 victims) included: 135 Hispanic victims, 34 white (non-Hispanic) victims, 106 black (non-Hispanic) victims, and 7 Asian (non-Hispanic) victims.

Victim to Offender Relationship

Where the relationship was known, 10.8 percent of child victims were killed by a family member with a handgun (22 out of 203). Of these victims, 45.5 percent were children murdered by a parent. An additional 13.6 percent of the children were murdered by a stepparent. Overall, another 36.0 percent were killed by strangers (73 victims) and 10.3 percent were killed by a friend or romantic partner (boyfriend, girlfriend, or homosexual partner) (21 victims). The largest percentage of child victims, 42.9 percent, were killed by an acquaintance (87 victims).

Homicide Victims and Weapons

For homicides in which the weapon could be identified, 64.6 percent of child victims (415 out of 642) were shot and killed with a gun. Of those, 71.1 percent (295 victims) were killed with a handgun. For homicides where both the victim and the shooter were children, 76.2 percent of incidents involved a firearm (112 out of 147) with 69.6 percent of those involving a handgun (78 victims).

Homicide Victims and Circumstance

From 1995 to 1999, there were 223 incidents in which the circumstance of the handgun homicide of the child victim could be identified. Of these, 83.4 percent were not related to the commission of any other felony.

Where the number of victims and offender was known, 65.4 percent of incidents involved one victim and one offender (161 incidents), 28.0 percent of the homicides involved one victim and multiple offenders (69 incidents), 4.1 percent involved multiple victims and one offender (10 incidents), and 2.4 percent involved multiple victims and multiple offenders (6 incidents).

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