Gun ownership is a right that was given to Americans at the birth of the United States and since then the topic has been highly disputed. Guns have the ability to end someone’s life at the blink of an eye and because of that many people believe they should not be available to the public. Accidental shootings are a large part of the danger of gun ownership. The fourth leading cause of death in 2013 was from unintentional shootings with 130,557 deaths. While not all of these deaths were children, a large number of the preventable firearm fatalities are children under the age of 25. Parents often purchase guns to protect their family from danger and simply to practice their constitutional right to own a gun but they are actually putting their …show more content…
They were juniors in college and were enjoying their freedom of being 21. They were enjoying some beer when they remembered Justin’s dad kept a gun in a safe in the other room. They grabbed the key and decided to check out the weapon that they grew up mimicking. I remember watching my brother and his friends playing with paintball guns, BB guns, water guns, and virtual guns on video games. The guns he played with as a kid were not much different from the gun in his hand except the fact that this one had the overwhelming capability to kill. Justin thought it would be fun to hold the gun to his head and pretend to shoot himself. But, his joke turned into a harsh reality when he pulled the trigger of the unknowingly loaded gun. Justin G. Smalls died that night within seconds of the trigger being pulled. Although I didn’t know Justin, my brother has never been the same since. The weapon he grew up playing with just ended his best friend’s life and he had to watch it all happen. This is not an isolated incident, between 2005 and 2010, over 1,100 people under the age of 25 died from unintentional shootings and they easily could have been avoided without easy access to firearms. With greater education and storage of firearms within homes, many deaths can and should be