American toddlers have shot 23 people this year—mostly themselves.
Last year, a Washington Post analysis found that toddlers were finding guns and shooting people at a rate of about one a week. This year, that pace has accelerated. There have been at least 23 toddler-involved shootings since Jan. 1, compared with 18 over the same period last year. In the vast majority of cases, the children accidentally shoot themselves. That’s happened 18 times this year, and in nine of those cases the children died of their wounds.
Doubtlessly these toddlers will kill many more before they are stopped.
It correlates strongly to state-level gun storage laws, reports WaPo. States with lax ones see lots of toddler shootings; even states with high levels of gun violence in general see few toddler gun injuries when they enact such laws. The NRA claims gun storage laws are an attack on individual liberty, and it not only opposes them but sues city governments that enact them.