On the heels of yet another mass school shooting in Georgia in September and in Madison, Wisconsin in December, the nation's gun violence epidemic will be a key issue in the coming years, with half of Americans in agreement that gun violence is a major problem, according to the Pew Research Center.

Almost 10,500 children and teens were killed as a result of gun violence in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. That's more than the 9,928 children who lost their lives in motor vehicle-related incidents in the same time period. The most recent data since the COVID-19 pandemic may mark a turning point in how prominently gun violence factors into children's lives—and their early deaths.

This past summer, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy took the unprecedented step of declaring gun violence a public health crisis.

Northwell Health partnered with Stacker to analyze CDC mortality statistics nationwide and highlight the individual states where gun deaths are surpassing motor vehicle accidents, becoming the leading cause of death for American kids through their high school years. The gun death data analyzed includes homicide, suicide, and accidental deaths for anyone 18 and younger. Vehicular deaths included all motor vehicle transportation-related deaths for the same age group.

The striking shift in leading causes of death among American children comes on the tail end of decades of work by aggrieved families, members of Congress, regulators, and automobile manufacturers who have worked to make roads safer for young people while still keeping vehicles accessible to the public.

Vehicle safety awareness dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, a period of mass mobilization, as more households purchased their own cars and the nation built out the system of interstate highways we still use today. It was also a period of great carnage that disturbed the American public. Annual motor vehicle-related deaths rose from 1950-1966, according to archived CDC reports. The tragic loss of life, particularly among young people under age 35 who made up more than half of the fatalities during the time period, compelled Congress to act.

In the aftermath, in 1970, Congress created the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an agency dedicated to reducing the number of traffic fatalities. Despite auto manufacturer claims that regulations would restrict vehicle owners' freedoms, the government later mandated by law shatterproof windshields, collapsible steering columns, passenger seat belts, and car seats for children—all of which have helped decrease fatality rates on roads.

Today, as the American public is shaken time and again by acts of gun violence against young people, policies enacted to reduce the carnage stand in surprising contrast to legislation put forth to curb vehicle-related deaths. A lopsided picture emerges—one that comes into stark focus in fatality data collected by the CDC.

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Gun violence is now the leading cause of early death for children and teens 18 and younger

It was the massacre of two adults and 19 school children in Uvalde, Texas, that sparked both political parties to pass the first gun regulations in nearly 30 years in 2022.

Children are almost half as likely today to lose their lives in a car crash compared to 20 years ago, while the likelihood of losing their life to a firearm has only increased. The two causes of death switched places in 2020 while the U.S. was in the throes of a deadly pandemic as well as social and political unrest that accompanied a buying frenzy of sorts for firearms.

Firearms remained the leading cause of death for children in the subsequent years. A study published in the American Academy of Pediatrics found that the majority of kids dying from gun violence were disproportionately teenage boys between the ages of 15-19, and often young Black men.

Nearly 1 in 5 American households purchased a firearm between March 2020 and March 2022, according to a survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Guns found broader appeal among first-time buyers during the height of the pandemic as well. Compared to Americans who purchased guns in the decade before the pandemic, more recent gun purchasers are significantly more likely to be under 45, people of color, unmarried, and not homeowners. During that two-year period, 1 in 20 Americans purchased a firearm for the first time, according to NORC.

Nonprofit news organization The Trace has charted the rising prevalence of gun violence alongside rising new gun manufacturing and sales in the U.S. Beneath the national ownership and violence trends lie individual states with varying rates at which kids lose their lives because of firearms—as well as varying laws to prevent it.

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Some regions push the national average to new levels more than others

Guns have overtaken vehicles as a leading cause of death for school-aged kids in 22 states, more than half of all states for which there is reliable data.

The widest gaps in gun deaths compared to vehicle deaths have emerged in Louisiana, Illinois, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Despite Illinois having some of the most stringent gun laws in the country, kids in that state are killed by guns at among the highest rates in the nation. States where vehicle deaths still outpace deaths related to firearms by the largest margins include Montana, Iowa, Idaho, California, and Oregon.

"A public health approach can guide our strategy and actions, as it has done in the past with successful efforts to address tobacco-related disease and motor vehicle crashes," Murthy said in June's declaration.

Across the U.S., a patchwork of state laws has been tied to successfully curbing gun violence to different degrees.

The gun safety nonprofit Everytown released a study in 2022 measuring the strength of gun regulations by state and comparing it to how many people were killed by firearms. The findings were striking: States with more restrictions had fewer deaths. It ranks California, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Hawai'i, New Jersey, and Maryland high for gun restrictions.

An examination of more than 150 studies measuring the efficacy of various gun safety laws by the nonpartisan RAND Corporation found that not all regulations show evidence of preventing deaths. RAND researchers found that there is significant evidence that child-access prevention laws can effectively combat suicide, unintentional deaths and injury, as well as violent crime.

At a campaign event shortly after the shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia that left four dead, including two teens, Democratic Nominee Harris called for reform: "We've gotta stop it. We have to end this epidemic of gun violence."

Story editing by Alizah Salario. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Janina Lawrence. Photo selection by Lacy Kerrick.

This story originally appeared on Northwell Health and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.