By Aditi Vasan and Eugenia South, The Washington Post, November 1, 2021
Every night, children in cities across the United States wake up to the sound of gunfire. They hide in their homes, lying on the ground, waiting to hear sirens. Many fear for their own safety. Some think about loved ones lost to gun violence. But all of them will be affected by this violence in some way.
In our hometown of Philadelphia, 2021 is on pace to be the most violent year in the city’s history, with more than 1,800 people, including more than 170 children under age 18, killed or injured by a gun since January. These numbers are staggering, but they tell only part of the story. Each of these 1,800 victims has family members, neighbors and friends who have also been affected. At one pediatric primary care clinic in West Philadelphia, 70 percent of patients — all of them children or young adults — had one or more shootings on their block in the past year.
So when we consider how gun violence affects children, we must think not only about shooting victims and their families, but also about the many children who grow up listening to gunshots at night, bearing witness to neighborhood violence and seeing newly empty seats in their classrooms.
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