U.S. Gun Control Laws and Gun Violence: A Violation of Children’s Rights? by Elizabeth Bannan

Degree Programme: MSC Children’s Rights

The Benchmark Established by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations, 1989) is a legally binding agreement that includes 54 articles, enshrining in the doctrine the fundamental rights of every child that should be protected and promoted by state parties (UNICEF, n.d.). As a member of the United Nations, the United States of America was actively involved in the creation and writing of the doctrine, but is now, as of January 2026, the only country to not ratify the Convention. A central concern fuelling this hesitation by the U.S. Senate to approve ratification is that fear that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) would “undermine parental authority and that [U.S.] state legislatures and courts could not effectively resist this trend” (Browning, 2006: p. 159). While this debate over ratification continues, particularly with heightened political division and ongoing resistance from parental rights organizations (Parental Rights Foundation, 2020), the UNCRC remains a valuable tool to analyse and assess how children’s rights are, or not, respected in different policy decisions and contexts within the United States. As observed in other countries, the UNCRC functions well alongside other instruments as an auditing tool to “honestly and imaginatively… measure the enjoyment of children’s rights in a variety of contexts” (Kilkelly and Lundy, 2006: p. 349). Accordingly, the Convention will subsequently be employed here to critically assess how U.S. policies around gun control and gun violence impact the realization of children’s rights in America.

Gun Control Laws and Policies in the U.S.: An Overview of Historical and Modern Contexts

When the United States Constitution was ratified on December 15^th, 1791, the U.S. Bill of Rights and the original ten amendments were codified in American law. The Second Amendment, commonly referred to as the “right to bear arms”, protects the right of Americans to possess guns and use them for their own protection (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, 2024). In part, the inclusion of this Amendment was influenced by the historical context at the time, where post-American revolution fears around oppressive military authorities led to beliefs that citizens needed to own guns to protect themselves and their properties.

Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the original Constitution in an expansive volume of court cases and has largely defended the individual right to bear arms in recent years. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Court determined that rights under the Second Amendment protect individual gun ownership and self-defense in the home. In the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the court also found that the right to gun ownership extends beyond the home, influencing open carry laws at the state policy level. The ongoing protection of the Second Amendment has led to state-by-state differences in gun policies and ownership laws to a drastic extent, seen in dramatic discrepancies between states for policies such as “Stand Your Ground” laws, conceal and carry requirements, and levels of sales taxes on gun and ammunition purchases (McBride, 2024). Policies around background checks for applying for a gun license continue to be a contentious issue as well, where current federal law does not close the loophole of gun sales from unlicensed sellers, giving easy access to firearms for individuals who would not pass background checks from licensed sellers (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2022). The politicization of this issue has strong ongoing influence on potential reform efforts, seen evidently for example in campaigns by the National Rifle Association (NRA). With the underlying and longstanding American belief in prioritizing individual freedom and choice over government control, the NRA has constructed a narrative that the “group represents ‘freedom’, making any opposition easily labelled as ‘anti-freedom” (Bhatia, 2019: p. 4). Thus, any effort to expand gun control in the name of public safety is deemed anti-American.

Shifting towards the lens of children’s rights, it is necessary to contend with the reality of how these gun policies, or perhaps lack thereof, operate within the lived experiences of young people in the U.S. Between 2013 and 2017, an average of 36,300 people died from guns every year in the United States, which is almost 100 deaths every day (Sadat and George, 2019: p. 7). With “years of relative inaction to reduce U.S. gun violence”, there has been a significant rise in gun deaths among young people ages 15 to 29, with 11,947 dying in this population group in 2016 (Parsons et al., 2018: p. 3). School shootings in particular have become a frequent, and one could argue almost expected incident in the United States, with “roughly one shooting a week now [happening] on school grounds in which someone (other than the shooter) is hurt or killed” (Sadat and George, 2019: p. 8). As of May 2023, more than 338,000 American students have experienced some kind of gun violence while attending school since the Columbine shooting occurred in 1999 (United Nations, 2023: p. 2). Given this ongoing and intense violence against American children linked to inadequate gun control policy and law, this remainder of this essay will critically analyse this situation through a children right’s lens, employing a few specific articles outlined in the UNCRC (United Nations, 1989).

Analysing Gun Control and Gun Violence Through the Lens of Children’s Rights

In the following sections, policies and practices of U.S. gun control, and subsequent violence against and experiences of American children resulting from these policies, will be critically assessed for their engagement with children’s rights. In particular, this issue will be examined through the following articles outlined in the UNCRC: Article 6, the right to survival; Article 19, protection from harm and violence; Article 12, the right to be heard; and Article 3, the best interests of the child (United Nations, 1989).

Article 6: “The Right to Survival”

Article 6 of the UNCRC contends that “State Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child” (United Nations, 1989). The designation of extent to the “maximum” in this Article can then call into question the current lack of adequate gun control in America and whether the U.S. government has substantially ensured the survival and development of its young citizens. States are called upon by this article to “take special measures to ensure the right of life of children and ensure that they enjoy the ‘minimum conditions for a life of dignity” (Tobin, 2019: p. 349). As interpreted by Tobin, this includes taking adequate measures to prevent “murder by adult or peers” (2019: p. 349). However, in policy decisions that seemingly move in the opposite direction from this interpretation and application of Article 6, the current U.S. government and particularly President Trump’s Administration has dismantled decades of gun violence protection efforts (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2025). In just one of many examples of these policy changes, President Trump shut down the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, which was previously responsible for coordinating federal responses to mass shootings, including school shootings. In these decisions, American law is then increasingly violating Article 6 of the UNCRC.

The implementation of Article 6 into state parties’ law and policies has additionally faced larger challenges as identified by the drafters of the Convention. For many state parties, the realisation of the right to survival and development has been reactive, rather than proactive as intended by the Convention (Sutherland, 2015: p. 280). In the United States as well as in the other most affluent democracies across the world, children remain some of the “most disempowered people in any society” in spite of large-scale recognition and ratification of the UNCRC (Sutherland, 2015: p. 293). In the context of U.S. gun control, this reactive implementation of laws protecting children’s rights under Article 6 is evident in, for example, the passing of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act 2022 (United States), where the act was only passed through Congress successfully after a racially motivated shooting in Buffalo, NY, and a mass shooting of 21 individuals, including 19 children, in a Texas school (Wilson, Hall and Jordan, 2023). This reactive, rather than proactive, approach to gun control law can then be argued as insufficiently meeting the Article 6 standard of ensuring “minimum conditions for a life of dignity” (Tobin, 2019: p. 349), and points to an urgent need for shifting the procedure of policymaking around gun violence.

Additionally, including mental health in the conceptualization of proper childhood allows for an examination of the long-term impact on children of toxic stress resulting from direct or indirect experiences of school shootings and other gun violence. As demonstrated in medical research, toxic stress in childhood can “place an individual at risk for negative physical, mental, and behavioural health outcomes well into adulthood” (Bucci et al., 2016: p. 421). For youth in America attending school on a daily basis, many “live in a state fear due to perpetual and constant threats of violence at their school” (Barron, 2024: p. 7). As such, the current insufficient gun control policies in the U.S. can be argued to additionally violate the right to development, and more generally the right to health, as set out in Article 6.

Article 19: “Protection from Harm and Violence”

Article 19 of the UNCRC states that state parties are expected to take “all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse…” (United Nations, 1989), clearly calling for considerable measures towards preventing gun violence. In implementing Article 19, the UNCRC Committee has explicitly stressed “in the strongest terms that child protection must begin with proactive prevention of all forms of violence” (Tobin, 2019: p. 1097). This expectation of “proactive prevention” measures once again calls into question the current status quo for gun control laws at the federal and state level in the United States.

Given ongoing tension over gun control policies in the U.S., researchers have explored the relationship between state level gun laws and gun violence. One project hypothesized that states with stricter gun laws would also have “lower mortality and resource utilization rates from paediatric firearms-related injury admissions” (Tashiro et al., 2016). In turn, this epidemiological study did find that a lack of adequate state-level gun control was correlated with significant negative public health outcomes. In this context, it is evident that gun violence is demonstrably preventable by stricter policies. For instance, permit-to-purchase (PTP) laws and other laws have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing firearm violence and “can also reduce the availability of guns in the underground gun market” (Crifasi, 2018: p.579). Furthermore, research has also indicated that the majority of intentional gun violence perpetrators obtained handguns through legal means (Crifasi, 2018), which indicates that current policy remains much too limited in scope and leniency to adequately prevent violence and harm.

As Independent Expert Paulo Sergio Pinheiro stated in a UN General Assembly session, violence against children “is very prevalent and knows no boundaries of geography, class, politics, race or culture” (United Nations General Assembly, 2005). While this reality is troubling, there is an immense advantage in the interpretation and implementation of Article 19, in that it acknowledges the “variety of forms of violence and maltreatment, physical, psychological, and sexual, which are perpetrated against children” (United Nations General Assembly, 2005: p. 786). In such, Article 19 can then be considered a call for a recognition of protection beyond fatalities and physical harm to children caused by gun violence, allowing for state parties to be held responsible for other forms of violence and harm in this context, as seen for example by toxic stress discussed previously.

Article 12: “Right to Be Heard”

Article 12 of the UNCRC was one of the most controversial provisions of the doctrine, particularly during the development and drafting stage (Lundy, 2007), and in a significant manner “recognises the child as a full human being with integrity and personality and the ability to participate freely in society” (Freeman, 1996: p. 37, cited in Lundy, 2007: p. 928). Seen in the UNCRC text itself, the right of the child to participate in legal proceedings in matters affecting them (United Nations, 1989) is particularly poignant in the context of both preventative and reactive proceedings regarding school shootings, where children are the primary target of undue violence and harm. As well, Article 12 can also be interpreted to necessitate that state parties additionally must “combat negative attitudes which impede children’s realization of their right to be heard” (Tobin, 2019: p.654). In General Comments by the UNCRC General Committee, youth voice as a key component of children’s rights has been further expanded upon. Voices and testimonies of young people have become increasingly powerful and influential in preventing breaches of child rights (United Nations, 2009: p. 27). The Committee also importantly recognized that active participation in proceedings post-emergency situations, like school shootings, allows young people to “regain control over their lives, contributes to rehabilitation, develops organizational skills and strengthens a sense of identity” (United Nations, 2009: p. 28). Furthermore, participation for adolescents specifically can be an important “means of political and civic engagement” and help young people hold their governments responsible for the realization of their rights as children (United Nations, 2016: p. 8).

Unfortunately, despite the potential significant impact Article 12 and related General Comments could have in the realm of gun control policy and law in the United States, the actualization of this impact has not yet occurred. While advocacy by young Americans with both direct and indirect experience of gun violence is quite frequent in recent years, their calls for stricter laws and policies have frequently been disregarded, or in extreme cases met with callous and prejudiced resistance from politicians and public figures. Unfortunately, scholars have noted that Article 12 can easily be misinterpreted or misused for “tokenistic or decorative participation” of young people, where young people may be listened to on the surface but ultimately ignored in actual decision-making (Lundy, 2007: p. 938). In the context of the United States, many survivors of school shootings, for example, are not yet of voting age and therefore must rely on politicians to legitimately listen to their calls and on adult counterparts to vote accordingly. While some successes have been seen in recent years, such as with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, there is still significant discrepancies at the state-level in terms of proper gun control policies (McBride, 2024) and the current presidential administration has continuously rollbacked positive endeavors made before 2024 (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2025). As noted in UNCRC General Comment 5, listening to children is the relatively easy part: “giving due weight to their views requires real change” (United Nations, 2003: p. 4).

It is important to note in this discussion of youth voice that the highly publicized recent advocacy by the Parkland Shooting survivors and other young people were not the first to spearhead gun control advocacy. In fact, black and brown young people have long been committed and passionate advocates for reduce gun violence in their local communities: “being the communities that gun violence affects the most, young people have been at the forefront in the fight to end cyclical violence, mass shootings, and suicide” (Parsons et al., 2018: p. 14). This signifies both that young people have had passionate and informed opinions about gun control policies for some time now, and that these voices have been consistently disregarded in policy decision-making by adults.

Article 3: “Best Interests”

Article 3 of the UNCRC states that in all matters and decisions regarding children, the “best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration” (United Nation, 1989). This article is considered by the Committee to be a “fundamental value” of the UNCRC and is one of the four general principles as well (Tobin, 2019: p. 172). In practice, this entails that country reports submitted to the Committee and subsequent concluding observations are guided by the “best interests” article, as well as Articles 2, 6 and 12. While viewed as a significantly important aspect of the Doctrine, Article 3 is also often complex and controversial in implementation, and some of these issues that arise can be seen in the context of gun policy in the U.S. The article itself is often subject to a range of interpretations, due to a “variety of individual circumstances” that would influence what is considered to be in the best interest of a child (George and Mohd Awal, 2019: pp. 32-33).

The UNCRC Committee has cautioned that “an adult’s judgement of a child’s best interest cannot override the obligation to respect all the child’s rights” (United Nations, 2013: p. 3). Critics of Article 3 have said that the principle provides an easy cover for adult action on behalf of children’s rights based in “bias, paternalism and capricious decision-making” (Parker, 1994: p. 26, cited in George and Mohd Awal, 2019: p. 33). This overly paternalistic approach to the best interests of children and an extreme example of Article 3 implementation can be seen in calls by conversative politicians and organizations in the U.S. to arm teachers with guns to prevent school shootings, as an alternative solution to improving gun control (Overby, 2012). Wayne LaPierre, while president of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), said “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” The NRA then called for placing armed law enforcement officials in every American school to prevent further school shootings and other gun violence. However, this constructed narrative is both completely out of touch with what youth advocates are calling for and also objectively false, as only seven instances out of 250 active shootings in the U.S. between 2000 and 2017 were stopped by an armed civilian (Bhatia, 2019: p. 16). In this poignant example, echoed in other politicized conversations about gun control, the excessively paternalistic approach is evident, and the “best interests” of American children is being arbitrarily determined and acted on by misinformed and biased adult leaders.

An additional complex point of contention with the “best interests” principle of the UNCRC is conflicting implementation with Article 15, which gives children the right to protest and assemble peacefully (United Nations, 1989). In response to the Parkland high school shooting, where 17 individuals were killed and 18 were injured, students across the country staged school walkouts to protest a lack of response. However, many youths were met with strict disciplinary action from school administrators, including multi-day suspensions and other harsh punishments (CBS Baltimore, 2018; Williams, 2018). This violation of young people’s right to protest was explained as being in the “best interests” of the children, where schools are places for children to “learn and grow” and cannot be disrupted by acts of peaceful walkouts. Demonstrated here once again is the misuse of Article 3 to supersede other rights enshrined in the UNCRC, where adults’ judgements of what is best for children in turns disregards, rights set out in Article 15 and others (United Nations, 2013). This issue continues to be a complex part of UNCRC implementation, and moving forward, adults in the U.S. and other countries must critically examine their own misappropriations of the “best interests” principle to ensure all rights of children are supported and upheld.

The Future of Gun Control in the U.S.: Is Radical Change Possible?

On June 25^th, 2024, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared gun violence an official public health crisis in America. This warranted, and perhaps unsurprising, declaration is based on numerous startling statistics, including that globally the U.S. ranks at the 93^rd percentile for firearm mortality and 92^nd percentile for children (Gumas, Gunja and Williams II, 2024). While youth and adult advocates across the country have passionately worked for many years now to improving gun control policies, the current presidential administration continues to rollback any progress made to reduce gun violence and in turn better protect children’s rights in America. However, as is often the case when discussing the power of youth advocacy, there are arguments to be made for hope and positive change in the future. Young Americans who have grown up in this era of intentional gun violence becoming commonplace are beginning to vote and move into positions of power. It will be intriguing to see how their lived experiences influence their political views, election outcomes, policy decisions, and discussions at large about gun control. A recent poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics found that 70% of Americans ages 18-to-29 years old believe that U.S. gun controls should be stricter (Harvard Kennedy School, 2019). As for entering positions of legislative power, there is a new generation of young leaders, such as Justin Pearson and Maxwell Frost, whose personal experiences of direct and indirect gun violence have strongly pushed their political motivations and plans while in office (Clayton, 2026). New energized approaches to solving this issue, with young people at the forefront, signal a potential for hope, and highlight the importance of incorporating young people and their rights in policymaking to create real, radical change.

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