By Rachel Nostrant
(Reuters) - Child gun deaths in the United States have&nbsp;hit&nbsp;a&nbsp;record&nbsp;high, according to a new&nbsp;study&nbsp;published by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's mortality database, the&nbsp;study&nbsp;published on Monday in the AAP's journal Pediatrics found that 4,752&nbsp;children&nbsp;died from gun-related injuries in&nbsp;2021, the latest year for which data was available, up from 4,368 in 2020 and 3,390 in 2019.
Gun violence has been the&nbsp;number&nbsp;one cause of death for&nbsp;children&nbsp;in the United States since 2020.
The&nbsp;study&nbsp;was published as Tennessee lawmakers opened a special session on public safety after a Nashville school shooting earlier this year that&nbsp;killed&nbsp;three&nbsp;children&nbsp;and three teachers.
Annie Andrews, a South Carolina pediatrician and gun violence prevention researcher who was not involved in the&nbsp;study, said that when she became a doctor, "I never imagined I would take care of so many&nbsp;children&nbsp;with bullet holes in them.
"But the fact of the matter is, in every&nbsp;children's hospital across this country, there are&nbsp;children&nbsp;in the pediatric intensive care units suffering from firearm injuries."
The&nbsp;study&nbsp;further showed that Black&nbsp;children&nbsp;accounted for around 67% of firearm homicides while white&nbsp;children&nbsp;made up about 78% of gun-assisted suicides.
Iman Omer, a junior at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and an anti-gun violence advocate with Students Demand Action, said the&nbsp;study's findings were devastating but unsurprising.
"Every year, I know that 128&nbsp;children&nbsp;and teens in Tennessee die by&nbsp;guns," Omer said as she headed to the state's capitol Tuesday to join protesters who have been demanding tougher gun laws.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who knew two of the teachers&nbsp;killed&nbsp;in the Nashville shooting, had asked lawmakers in the special session to bolster so called red flag laws aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of people deemed to be a threat. He has faced resistance from his fellow Republicans, who control the statehouse.
In a statement Tuesday, the Tennessee Firearms Association expressed concern that "while some Republican legislators have said that no Red Flag laws will pass, far fewer have stated that no laws that would have any negative impact on 2nd Amendment protected rights would pass."
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(Reporting by Rachel Nostrant; Editing by Donna Bryson; and Alistair Bell)

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Number of US children killed by guns hit record high in 2021 - study