Nearly a Quarter of Young Assault Victims have Guns: Study

About 23 percent of young assault victims treated in the emergency departments have guns, a new study found. Researchers said that the study findings will help identify victims of gun violence.

The study was conducted by University of Michigan Injury Center and was based on data obtained from 689 teens and young adults from emergency departments in Flint, Mich., who were being treated for assault injuries.  According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Flint has the highest rate of violent crimes in the U.S. There have been nearly 2,000 cases of serious assaults in 2012.

In the study group, about 23 percent said that they had owned a weapon in the past six months with 22 percent in this group saying that they have a highly lethal automatic or semiautomatic weapon. About 80 percent of these guns were obtained illegally.

Also, assault victims with guns were more likely to be involved in serious fights. They were also likely to be addicted to drugs and intended harming the person who caused the injury.

"This study zeroes in on a high-risk population of assault injured youth that has not been studied in this way previously. The high rates of substance use, fighting and attitudes favoring retaliation, combined with the fact that so many of these youth had firearms, increases their risk for future firearm violence, as well as injury or death. But, our findings also provide an opportunity for public health interventions that could decrease their future firearm violence risk," said Patrick Carter, M.D., a clinical lecturer from U-M Medical School, according to a press release.

Robert Sege, MD, PhD, of Boston Medical Center, said that intervention programs, aimed at counseling assault victims about the possible dangers of gun violence, were unlikely to cause a serious impact on the crime rate, according to Medpage.

The study is published in the journal Pediatrics.