When I was a child, nothing was more glamorous than smoking. In fact, there was something vaguely wrong with you if you did not smoke. Guns possess a similar seductive glamour, especially to children. Guns were the things that heroes carried, transformative instruments that giants used to save the world from Hitler and lesser bad guys. Guns are seductive.
Guns seduce children, and men as well.
Of course, guns and cars have different purposes. Pending the cultural sea change, I have a modest proposal. New entertainment industry standards should require that in all movie and television productions in which guns are used, only live ammunition may be employed, so that an actor who is portrayed as being shot must, in actuality, be shot. Every character who is portrayed as dying by gunshot must, in fact, die. All blood from gun wounds must be the actors' actual blood.