EXPLAINER
Firearms are the leading cause of death for US young people aged 18 to 25, surpassing drug poisoning and other causes.
By
Published On 25 Apr 2025
After a gunman at Florida State University killed two people and wounded at least six others last week, an advocacy group posted about firearm-related deaths.
“Gun violence is the leading killer of college-aged people in the US,” Moms Demand Action, part of gun violence prevention organisation Everytown for Gun Safety, posted on April 17 on Threads. “Our young people deserve better.”
According to health experts and the most recent data, the statement is accurate for firearm-related deaths in this class of young people.
Everytown for Gun Safety released a 2023 report citing 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data showing firearms are the number one mechanism of death for people aged 18 to 25. Everytown for Gun Safety spokesperson Katie Wertheimer also pointed to a 2022 article published in the journal Pediatrics that found “firearms are the leading cause of death in children and youth 0 to 24 years of age in the United States.”
PolitiFact queried the CDC’s Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System for data on the most recent injury deaths for ages 18 to 25. In 2023, firearms were the mechanism that accounted for the most deaths in that age group, at 8,086. For ages 24 and 25, drug poisoning was the top cause.
CDC data showed accidents, followed by suicide and homicide, were the leading causes of death among people aged 18 to 25. These categories all include firearm-related deaths. Brian Tsai, a CDC spokesperson, told PolitiFact that although the agency does not rank firearm deaths as a leading cause of death because they occur across categories, “our data does show that firearms are the leading mechanism of injury mortality.”
“Categories for ranking cause of death must be mutually exclusive and it has been CDC’s longstanding policy to rank the homicide, suicide and unintentional injury categories,” Tsai said in an email. “CDC does not classify firearms as a cause of death, but rather as a mechanism by which death occurs (same is true for motor vehicle accidents).”
The CDC considers unintentional firearm injuries as “fatal or nonfatal firearm injuries that happen while someone is cleaning or playing with a firearm or other incidents of an accidental firing without evidence of intentional harm”.
In 2023, CDC data showed unintentional injuries (14,238) were the leading cause of death among people ages 18 to 25, followed by suicide (5,632) and homicide (5,060). Narrowing down to deaths by firearm, the majority were homicides (4,651), followed by suicides (3,158).
Gun-rights advocates question whether the term “gun violence” should include suicides. Countries, such as Canada and Australia, include firearm suicide in that term. Surveys about gun violence use varying language and criteria on including suicide deaths.
Daniel Webster, distinguished scholar for the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told PolitiFact the Moms Demand Action statement is accurate.
Veronica Pear, a University of California Davis School of Medicine social epidemiologist and assistant professor, also said the statistic is accurate, based on 2023 mortality data, noting that “gun violence” includes suicide and homicide.
Wertheimer referred PolitiFact to a 2024 article by KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News, that said firearm-related deaths among ages 18 to 25 “are predominantly due to homicides”.
Shootings on school and college grounds appear to make up a small portion of firearm-related deaths among people aged 18 to 25. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, there have been 463 deaths from gunfire on school grounds since 2013. An average of 4,300 children and teens, up to age 19, were shot and killed per year from 2019 to 2023, Everytown for Gun Safety reported.
Our ruling
Moms Demand Action said “gun violence is the leading killer of college-aged people in the US”.
Accidental deaths ranked number 1 for people ages 18 to 25 in 2023, and firearms were the “leading mechanism”, according to the CDC.
Based on expert analysis and the data, we rate the statement True.