While it will be months before police and elected leaders in Aurora can sort out the scope and causes of a recent plague of gun violence among youth in the region, one issue can be addressed now: gun access.
The problem of guns in the hands of young children and teens is far from new, and it’s hardly a problem unique to Aurora or Colorado.
The statistics surrounding gun violence and youth are horrific.
About 18,000 young children and teens are wounded by gunfire each year. An average of nine children under 18 die from gunfire every day in the United States, according to data compiled by The Children’s Defense Fund.
The deadliness of guns among our children comes in the form of children purposely or inadvertently shooting each other and themselves.
Tragically, the metro Aurora area is no stranger to any of this.
An Associated Press story earlier this year reported that in the last decade, 312 kids under 20 killed themselves with guns in Colorado, about 31 children and teens each year, according to the Colorado Violent Death Reporting System. Nationally, reports show it’s more than 1,000 children each year.
A horrific Aurora case in 2015 resulted in no charges against a father who carelessly left his handgun in a coat pocket, which was discovered by his 12-year-old son. The boy knew where in the house the bullets were. While having friends over, with the parents not home, he got out the gun and ended up inadvertently shooting a 7-year-old friend in the head.
This year, state lawmakers beefed up mandatory gun storage and lock laws, somewhat.
Without a single Republican vote, Democrats during the last legislative session created mandates for safe gun storage and cable trigger locks, especially in homes with children.
The bill, signed by Gov. Jared Polis, caught headlines, but it comes with a bevy of loopholes, among them, that a parent could get a bye from prosecution with the defense that the gun was left unlocked so a juvenile could defend themselves.
Aurora police have so far not provided information where the students involved in the most recent Aurora shootings obtained their guns.
Nationally, the story is much like the story locally.
Years of reports show that homes have been and still are an easy place for juveniles to get guns. With about half of all Americans reporting they have a gun in the house, according to a recent Gallup poll, it’s easy to see how guns are easy to come by for children.
Notoriously, the boy accused of shooting and killing fellow students in a Michigan high school last week obtained the gun from his parents home, just days after they purchased it, police in Michigan said.
Study after study reveals that, for years, guns are stolen from cars, inside houses, parents, friends. They’re sold among teenage friends, loaned and given as gifts.
The lure of guns to teens is undeniable.
In writing about teen shootings in 2018 Jacksonville, Florida, similar to recent tragedies in Aurora, interviews by Times-Union reporters of people convicted of past gun crimes were telling.
“Tony Brown is now 61 and serving time for a 1981 armed robbery he committed as an adult, reporters for the Times-Union wrote.
“Guns are easy to get in hands of these kids,” Brown wrote in a letter to the Times-Union. “They are bigger and more powerful than the guns I had, and once he or she feel the power he or she has just by pointing it at someone, nothing else will feel the same. … A gun in a kid’s hand is a powerful thing.”
While it’s unclear what police, youth leaders, schools and parents can do to persuade children to avoid guns and shun gun violence, it’s unequivocal that we must get them away from young children and teenagers.
Polis, local and state leaders should convene a task force whose sole focus is finding ways to get guns from the young and teenage children who have them, and to prevent them from getting access to guns in the future.
Sentinel reports over the past few weeks about two recent high-school-related shootings reveal children boasting an astonishingly cavalier attitude toward having firearms and using them.
When one of the boys accused of involvement in the Hinkley High School shooting was asked by police why he felt he needed a gun, his response made clear what Aurora and the surrounding region are up against.
The boy said, “it’s the way it is in this town,” according to the affidavit.
Lawmakers and leaders must make it a priority to prove the boy wrong.
I kept waiting for the solution in this story, but all I got was “we must get them away from young children and teenagers” and “Polis, local and state leaders should convene a task force.”
While the former is a noble goal and the latter couldn’t hurt, it’s easier said than done. The guns used by these troubled youth and gang bangers are bought and sold on the black market–a market that cares not at all what the laws are.
We know who these kids are. Other high schoolers do, too.
Rather than continuing to vilify lawful gun owners and dismissing those pulling the trigger, how about we beef up criminal possession to zero tolerance so these young thugs think twice about packing a gun or posting it on Facebook, much less using it in the commission of crimes?
Carry a gun underage, go directly to jail.
Good point. Many of these yahoos post pictures of themselves brandishing firearms on FB, TikTok, Instagram or Twitter. A dedicated taskforce monitoring those platforms could easily follow up on those postings.
FINE PARENTS the kid community service and confiscate the weapon
carry underage if caught that is at least confiscate and destroy the weapon-they expensive!
Well Said and Common Sense. However, Schultz-polis and his lockstep minions have no common sense, and really aren’t interested nor do they really care about the real solutions to this problem.
How do we get guns out of the hands of children who feel they need to protect themselves from others who wish them harm? Police are not obligated to protect anyone who is not already in their custody, even if they wanted to. Each one of us is our own first responder and is the sole person responsible for protecting and defending themselves. So I can understand their need to carry personal protection.
How do we keep firearms away from those who are unstable or violent without denying the nonviolent citizens their right to posses personal protection and without imposing discriminatory fees and licensing requirements that disproportionately target lower income communities. Don’t our poorer neighbors have the same right to protect themselves too?
Even before all the calls for defunding the police they were not able to be everywhere at all times.
The recently passed legislation requiring reporting lost or stolen firearms only accomplishes placating ignorance. I reported a lost firearm; stolen from my vehicle when I had to disarm myself to comply with nonsensical ‘gun free zone’ all the way back in 2013. They still haven’t located it so I fail to see how being required to report it makes anything better
additionally now they require we lock up our firearms but again fail to recognize that it won’t actually prevent theft for those of us who can’t afford necessary storage devices.
Rhonda pats herself on the back for passing legislation regardless of it efficacy just so they can go back to their demanding mom’s and claim they did something
Meanwhile firearms are used far more often to save lives and to prevent assaults but because they don’t make the headlines ignorant citizens believe the media’s manipulations. Manipulations like this very articles claim of “children under 20” as though society no longer considers an 18yr old to be an adult who can be sent of to die in war.
Very little progress is being made with regards to a symptom because while some people are harmed by this useful tool, far more people are saved by it and most free thinking citizens recognize that simple fact.
Focus on conflict resolution. Focus on mental awareness, mindfulness and coping skills.
Provide youth with productive and healthy outlets for expressing and venting frustrations and for healthy competition so they can express their prowess without inflicting harm on themselves & others.
continuing to focus on removing firearms from society is fruitless and wastes precious resources.
and then when someone does become violent hold them and the DA’s prosecuting them fully accountable.
Well said, Jafar. Further complicating the picture is the reform bill pushed by Rhonda Fields and other activists. The bill, which they will not discuss, creates vague use of force guidelines and punitive measures for the police. There are so many holes in logic behind the bill that it boggles the mind. Lucky for them, they don’t have to justify any of their logic. The result is that the police are hesitant to make any type of stop or to get involved. When you have no support from your own police administration and your city government and you will be second guessed by an uninformed media and prosecutors, why would you risk your career and your family’s future. The officers I have spoken with have told me that they are doing very little other than responding to shootings. When officers are afraid to stop stolen vehicles or suspicious persons, it creates an ideal situation for criminals. Why would you not feel free to drive a stolen car and carry a gun? As someone who has dealt with young gang members, I can tell you that they are very nonchalant about the danger to others. Having dealt with 15 year old murderers, I can tell you that they feel it is your fault if you get in the way while they are shooting. If we cannot deal realistically with the enforcement side, then we must suffer while we wait for long term social programs to help. These programs have noble objectives and many should be pursued. In the meantime, we need to have an open discussion about what the legislature has done to law enforcement.
why don’t you go talk to them instead of spreading your disgruntledness here ??? seems all you do really….it’s really disquietening really 🙁
We have tried talking to them. You should understand that things continue the way they are because they have the luxury of not listening and the media controls the narrative. I spent a lifetime of talking to chiefs who would not listen and knew they did not have to worry about the officers exposing them. There are far better ways to do policing. Those will not be heard because the politicians carefully control who gets a public voice. I tried to get on committees that offer input on policing. They made sure that no one who really knew what was going on would be included. No real police input. It would expose the lack of training and the lack of ethical guidance that the police leadership has provided. It is to the system’s advantage that you not know how corrupt and incompetent they are. Meanwhile, the public is allowed to believe wildly wrong ideas and to have naive opinions. It is a rarely strong “good ole boy system”. So, all I can do is use these limited resources to shine a light.
So police are ‘hesitant to ….get involved’? Then these officers should find another line of work, or get busy on investigative work to locate the sources of the guns and work with DAs to prosecute thereby reducing the scary situations they may be required to respond to.
Jafar, you are subject to misinformation when you say ‘Meanwhile firearms are used far more often to save lives and to prevent assaults..’ According to the Gun Violence Archives https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/, and other reputable data gathering organizations, including Statista https://www.statista.com/, the presence of a gun in the house is much more likely to lead to a shooting or suicide among residents that as a preventive from stranger attacks or assaults. You might also check out your beliefs or third party ‘facts’ you pick up, on snopes.com, widely relied on for snuffing out conspiracy theories and other misinformation clickbaits.
your weapon was stolen from your vehicle? How was it secured?? You can afford a gun but not the storage to contain the gun…that makes no sense does it?? “firearms are used far more often to save lives and to prevent assaults” your wishful thinking not backed up by facts…try again. “Focus on conflict resolution. Focus on mental awareness, mindfulness and coping skills.
Provide youth with productive and healthy outlets for expressing and venting frustrations and for healthy competition so they can express their prowess without inflicting harm on themselves & others.” NOW you’re on to something and THAT is what DEFUNDing the police was all about.
While these are good ideas, they have been around a long time. While we wait for these to work, we must try to protect people. Further, I can tell you that ideas like these are a joke to young toughs.