Children are often the victims of injury or death from guns they have easy access to, according to a new study by the Colorado School of Public Health, Denver Health and Children's Hospital Colorado.
The study looked at emergency room visits in Denver and Aurora, Colorado over nine years. They found that 129 of a total 6,920 children in the trauma room suffered gunshot wounds.
"In 14 percent of these cases children managed to get access to unlocked, loaded guns. In an area with so much disagreement, I think we can all agree that children should not have unsupervised access to unlocked, loaded guns," the study's lead author Angela Sauaia, said in a statement.
Firearm injuries tended to be more severe than other traumas, with 50 percent of victims requiring intensive-care treatment. For other traumas, about 19 percent of those injured required intensive care. Most of the injuries were self-inflicted wounds by adolescent boys, researchers found.
Researchers said they did not receive any federal funding for the study.
Sauaia told the Denver Post that at least 14 Colorado children per year are shot in "completely preventable" incidents. The number doesn't include those victims found dead at the scene of a crime or those who didn't go to the emergency room.
The study did not take into account major violent events. The 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, which killed 12 students and injured another 21, and the 2012 Aurora theater shootings, which killed 12 and wounded 58 last year, were not monitored in the study.
Colorado is one of several states that is considering stricter laws for gun control.
"But the point we can all agree upon is that, no matter what side of the gun divide you fall on, we need to store these weapons safely to protect our children from death or serious injury," Sauaia said .
