At least 150 children under 13 have been struck by stray bullets so far this year, according to an analysis by The Trace of data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a nonpartisan organization that tracks shootings in the U.S. Seventeen died. The youngest victim was just three days old, a boy injured in May when a house was shot up on Detroit’s east side.
Among other incidents, Jaheen Hunter was walking with his father in the Bronx last month on his fifth birthday when he was struck in the head by a bullet. It was his fifth birthday.
The gunman had been aiming for someone else. The 5-year-old still is in intensive care. In the following week, at least seven more children were unintended victims of gun violence. A 4-year-old boy in New Orleans was wounded when a gunman sprayed a group of family and friends sitting on a porch. In Memphis, a 2-year-old girl was fatally shot when someone opened fire on her mother’s car during a road-rage incident.