Legislature concerning firearm access is perhaps one of the most contentious and frustrating categories present on Capitol Hill today. While it seems that the public unanimously considers gun violence to be a societal negative, they also cannot seem to settle on a best-fit methodology for how to deal with the issue at hand. To combat the rising presence of juvenile gun violence in America, child access prevention laws should become a unilateral legislation nationwide. This assessment paper seeks to define juvenile gun violence, propose a policy solution for the nation, and lastly to examine whether or not this solution will be effective long-term. 
	When looking at gun violence perpetrated by juveniles, it is important to ensure that a uniform definition is utilized. In this case, youth gun violence is defined as a firearm being used in the presence of a young person between the ages of 10 and 24. This scope covers not just self-inflicted gunshot damage, but also a juvenile turning the gun on others. These statistics are staggering when closely analyzed: approximately 6,600 youth each year are victims of gun-related deaths. Concerning suicides, while the rate did decline for many years, it has been on an unfortunate upward trend since 2007, and is now the third most prevalent cause of death for youth under the age of 17 in America. 
	Due to an effect known as the “baby boomerang,” in which baby boomers are having more children, we live in a country with over 39 million children. From a purely psychological standpoint, these juveniles with guns can be more dangerous than a full-grown adult with a firearm for several reasons, all of which seem to come down to the same root cause: impulsivity. A young teenager who is making a snap judgement will be much more likely to pull the trigger on a gun in a heated situation than an adult, because a thirty year old is capable thinking about lifelong consequences in a way that a thirteen year old cannot yet even comprehend. This is not to say that adults are incapable of said impulsivity, but more so that they tend to have a better grasp on situations where lethality comes into play than a child. Firearms also put a psychological distance between whoever is wielding them and the victim – as Fox points out, if the only way of killing someone were to strangle them with your own two hands, people would likely be much less flippant about killing others. It is the ability to look at a firearm as doing the damage and not the shooter that lets this distancing take place, perhaps helping to explain why the number of handgun homicides perpetrated by juveniles quadrupled in the 1980s.
	Juveniles do not always take up gun ownership as their own idea, however – they can oftentimes be socialized into gun ownership by their families. If a parent owns a handgun, their child becomes five times more likely to own a gun themselves. This does not mean that the juvenile is any more or less likely to use the firearm as a weapon, however, just that they are far more likely to possess one if their parents do. While it might be a popular thought that juveniles are more likely to own a firearm if they are part of a gang, this might not always be the case – gang membership does not have an effect on likelihood of a juvenile to be recruited or not recruited into a gang. There is, however, a 15% increase in likelihood of gun ownership should a child become involved with a gang. Therefore, it seems that while gang involvement might cause a juvenile to be more likely to procure a gun and then carry it for their own personal protection, gang leaders do not seek out juveniles who already possess firearms.
