The number of US kids killed by guns since the Sandy Hook Massacre in 2012 has surpassed the total number of US combat deaths since the 9/11 attacks.

The US Defense Department says 6,929 troops have been killed in America's five military operations since the war on terror began following the hijackings and attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.  When civilian Defense Department employees are added, that number goes up to 6,950.

Five years and three months ago, Adam Lanza took at AR-15 assault weapon and stormed the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  He murdered 20 first grade students and six adult teachers.  Since then, more than 7,000 Americans under the age of 18 have been killed by guns, in and out of school.  That includes the teens killed during last month's massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The exact number of dead children isn't certain, because Republican politicians who get campaign contributions from the powerful gun lobbying organization the National Rifle Association (NRA) have made it difficult - and in some cases illegal - to compile statistics regarding gun-related deaths.  But the real number might actually be worse than 7,000. 

The fact-checking website Snopes examined data on the deaths of children 17 or younger in the years 2013 through 2016, and found 5,683 firearms-related deaths.  That's an average of 1,421 per year.  Applying that to the elapsed time since the Sandy Hook Massacre on 14 December 2012, the true death toll is about 7,460.