Toddlers have shot at least 50 people this year, 11 in Texas

During Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Hillary Clinton was asked if she was upset over the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision D.C. v. Heller, which overturned the District of Columbia’s long-standing ban on the ownership of handguns for personal use.

“Well, I was upset,” she replied, “because, unfortunately, dozens of toddlers injure themselves, even kill people with guns, because, unfortunately, not everyone who has loaded guns in their homes takes appropriate precautions.”

Clinton was referring here to a less-discussed aspect of the decision that also overturned a requirement that firearms like shotguns and rifles be unloaded and disassembled or triggerlocked while stored at home.

Gun safety proponents and many researchers say such safe storage laws prevent accidental shootings that kill hundreds of Americans each year. As a Washington Post analysis first noted a year ago, a substantial percentage of accidental shootings are committed by toddlers — children as young as 2 years old — who get their hands on a gun and accidentally shoot themselves or someone else.

In 2015, there were 58 shootings committed by toddlers, or more than one every week. The drumbeat of tragic shootings involving children barely able to walk has continued unabated.

Since Jan. 1, there have been 51 shootings involving toddlers in the United States. On this date last year, there had been 47 toddler-involved shootings. Texas leads the nation with 11. In the majority of this year’s cases, the child picked up a gun and shot himself or herself. Toddlers shot 12 other people, too. Just last week, in Muskegon County, Mich., a 2-year-old boy pulled a loaded rifle out of a closet and fired several rounds, one of which struck his 4-month-old sister in the back. She survived.

Shootings involving toddlers seem to be more prevalent in some states than in others, and it doesn’t appear to simply be a function of population. New York, for instance, has only seen one toddler-involved shooting since 2015, despite being the nation’s third-most populous state.

Georgia, on the other hand, has seen 10 toddler shootings since 2015. Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee all rank highly with seven shootings each.