Cook Children's Medical Center sounds alarm on rising child gun injuries

Cook Children's Medical on rising child gun injuries

Cook Children's Medical Center is urging gun safety awareness due to a significant increase in firearm-related injuries among children, emphasizing safe storage and the hidden dangers of even BB guns.

Innocent curiosity should not lead to a gun-related injury or worse.

Cook Children’s Medical Center is addressing the increase in cases of kids and gun violence as the Fort Worth hospital wants to raise awareness about gun safety as children spend more time at home during summer break.

Firearm injuries among minors

By the numbers:

Cook Children’s Medical Center has produced public service announcements and continues doing community outreach, which includes giving away lock boxes and cable locks for firearms.

Program specialist Eric Gonzalez handles the hospitals’ ongoing gun safety awareness.

"We see on average about 60 to 70 gun-related injuries every year here in the emergency department," said Gonzales. "I know across the state each year we can fill up seven school buses with the amount of kids that are killed or injured by firearms."

So far in 2025, 42 children have been treated for unintentional gun injuries.  A number on pace to surpass a total of 62 such injuries for all of 2024.

Gun safety storage

With summer vacation upon us, sleepovers can put children in unfamiliar environments. 

Cook Children’s wants parents to have open and frank conversations with the adults hosting their child. 

"Kids finding a firearm that’s not safely stored is more common than we think…" said Gonzales. 

"The fact is, guns are the leading cause of death for all age groups in the United States, 18 and below. We are not here to tell families whether they should own a gun or not own a gun, and we wouldn’t encourage families to use that as a talking point either. It’s, ‘we want to keep my child safe, we want to keep your child safe while they’re visiting. Can you make sure your gun is safely stored?' Very simple to the point."

Different firearm-related injuries

Gonzalez showed FOX 4 the impact of injuries caused by different weapons.

"This is a BB gun. You might expect 2 to 3 inches of penetration in a small body," said Gonzales. "People don’t often think of a BB gun or an airsoft gun as being something that could be fatal. But we’ve seen fatalities as a result of a BB gun."

What's next:

Between October 2024 and April 2025, the hospital has provided 252 gun safes and 206 gun locks throughout various communities.

 "Summer, especially, is a great time to practice the 3 T’s of gun safety: Talk, Teach, and Take Action," said Gonzales.

"Saving one's life is a huge thing. If we can do that, that’s great, but we’d like to do more."