Guns are the leading killer of Tennessee children, and the problem is getting worse.

Guns remain the leading non-medical killer of Tennessee's children, a new government report finds. And the rate of those deaths jumped sharply between 2019 and 2021, worsening the gap between the state and the national average for firearm-related fatalities of those 17 and younger.

The racial gap is particularly stark, with Black children being twice as likely to fall victim to such deaths, according to the Tennessee Department of Health's 2023 Child Fatality Annual Report.

The report comes as state lawmakers prepare for a special legislative session to consider measures to address gun violence, particularly after the mass murder at The Covenant School in Nashville in March. But one key measure suggested in the report to address pediatric gun deaths — the promotion of gun storage — has so far found little traction in the General Assembly.

Gov. Bill Lee has called for eliminating taxes on safety devices, providing free gun locks, expanding safe storage training and for public service announcements to promote safe storage. But only one House bill, proposed by Rep. Dewayne Thompson, D-Cordova, would require handgun safety courses to include training on the safe storage of firearms.

Guns and safety: Special session in Tennessee on public safety, guns: See the bills introduced so far

Neither Lee's proposal nor the bill offered by Thompson would require gun storage or set punishments for not doing so, something many gun safety advocates say is necessary for such proposals to work.

"These laws have been shown in numerous research studies to be effective, laws that put the onus on gun owners to properly store their firearms in order to prevent kids from gaining access to them," said Lindsay Nichols, policy director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun safety group named for former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived a gunshot to the head in 2011. "While most everyone agrees that a child should not have unsupervised access to a gun, actually ensuring that works a lot better if there's a legal standard in place. And that establishes a culture whereby gun owners understand their responsibility to safely store their guns."

House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The Tennessean also reached out to Gov. Bill Lee's office about the need for laws that punish those who don't properly store their guns and why Lee instead called for lesser incentives.

Spokeswoman Elizabeth Johnson said only: "Gov. Lee supports common-sense measures to alleviate financial burden and promote safe storage."

Firearm-related deaths of Tennessee's children

The rate of child gun deaths in Tennessee in 2021 was 5.5 per 100,000 residents. By comparison, the national average is 3.5 per 100,000 — putting the state more than 36% higher than the U.S. average. And, though the Tennessee rates dropped a bit in 2018 and 2019, child gun deaths jumped more than 77% between 2019 and 2021, according to the report.

Other notable facts:

• The state report concluded that the vast majority of child gun deaths (93%) were preventable.

• Firearm deaths were mostly due to murders (65%), suicides (24%) and accidents (5%).

• The number of male victims was four times that of females.

• More than 68% of child gun deaths involved those between the ages of 15 and 17; about 14% were between the ages of 10-14; and nearly 17% were between the ages of 1 and 9.

The Giffords Law Center ranked Tennessee 11th in the nation for overall gun violence and gave it an "F" for the strength of its gun safety laws and laws related to ease by which people can access firearms. States with looser gun laws tend to have higher rates of gun violence deaths, particularly involving children, Nichols said.

A recent analysis from the RAND Corporation seems to back that up. It found "supportive evidence" that child-access prevention laws reduce such fatalities.

"These are often teenagers involved in what we call 'community violence,' Nichols said. "They're interpersonal disputes, sometimes involving who they're dating or the things that teenagers argue about all the time. But because those teenagers had access to guns, they often become lethal."

State-proposed solutions

The state Department of Health report on child fatalities does not recommend strengthening gun laws.

Rather the report calls for more suicide prevention education and training. This would include a partnership between the Department of Health, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network to promote the safe storage of firearms.

It also calls on the Health Department to encourage suicide prevention education and work with the state's Department of Education to include it in the schools. This includes implementing a suicide prevention curriculum developed by the organization, Sources of Strength.

According to that group's website, each elementary school using the program should have at least two "coaches" trained to use the program. Buy-in and training fees can run in the thousands, or tens of thousands, depending on the program type selected.

Frank Gluck is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at fgluck@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FrankGluck.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Guns are killing Tennessee's children. It's getting worse, report shows