d fire. This is a horrendous event that proves that if guns are present within a household or within a family, odds are that kids will know about where they are kept and perhaps be curious enough to actually use them. In October 1997, a 16-year-old boy shot and killed his girlfriend and her best friend while they were exiting a Mississippi school leaving six others wounded (Liesen, Owens). The spontaneity of young children and guns are a lethal combination as illustrated in these two examples. In a study made across high schools in Seattle, 47% of males and 22% of females reported that they had easy access to handguns and 11.4% were gun-owning males (O'Donnel 772). The access to guns might prove to be a deadly for both innocent bystanders and the holder of the gun. Children should not be able to own guns. One of the prerequisites for owning a gun should be that the person is responsible enough to own a firearm. Since there are no guarantees for that, guns should only be issued in extensively controlled forms otherwise the government jeopardizes the safety of the people they've sworn to protect. In ages 10-14 72%, and in the ages 15-19, 85% of all homicides are committed with firearms. In addition to that 60 % of all suicides among youths is committed with a handgun. The total firearm death rate concerning white males in their teens now exceed natural causes (O’Donnell 771). These are alarming statistics show the brutal reality of firearms in the U.S. A study made by the American Psychological Association, Commission on Violence and Youth showed, in a study made in Seattle in 1993, that 6% of males in the 11th grade had at least once brought a handgun to school (O'Donnell 772). More than 1 in 20 had brought a handgun to school, in other words it was quite a common practice among youths. How does that affect the rest of us? Parents might just get the news from police officers that their son or daughter had be...
