American children are more likely to be gun victims than those in other rich countries, said a recent report by the U.S. National Public Radio (NPR), citing the massive ownership of firearms in the United States as one reason.

"The dangers young people face from firearms in America go well beyond school shootings, which account for only a fraction of all gun-related deaths," NPR said last week following the mass shooting in the city of Uvalde in the U.S. state of Texas, leaving at least 21 people dead, including 19 children.

"Whether it's the gun violence they face in their neighborhoods, or suicide or accidents at home when guns are left unsecured, the threat to the nation's children and teenagers is not only bad, but worsening," it said.

Citing statistics, NPR said gun violence overtook car accidents to become the No. 1 cause of death for U.S. children and adolescents in 2020.

After studying the rates of firearm deaths in the United States and other populous, high-income countries, researchers at the University of San Francisco and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that America accounts for the vast majority of firearm deaths among children: Across the 29 countries in their study, the United States accounted for almost 97 percent of the firearm deaths among children 4 years old or younger, and 92 percent of firearm deaths for those between the ages of 5 and 14.

One factor in America's high level of gun deaths is the massive number of guns in the country with Americans owning an estimated 393 million firearms, and this, to some extent, explains why the shooters can pull the trigger so easily, the report said, citing a 2018 study by the Small Arms Survey.

Research published last year and funded by the National Institute of Justice suggests that from 1966 to 2019, over 80 percent of mass shooters at K-12 schools stole guns from family members.

The United States has seen at least 214 mass shootings so far this year, according to an online database that keeps a record of the country's gun violence incidents.

More than 17,000 people have died in gun-related episodes across the United States over the past five months, including approximately 653 children and teenagers.

Texas's massacre is the deadliest American school shooting since the rampage in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. Before the Uvalde massacre, there were already 26 school shootings resulting in injury or death in the United States this year.

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(With input from agencies )