Tell an Adult. While schools and other social institutions have an important role to play in gun safety, the primary responsibility rests with parents. A child who can, under parental supervision, invite a classmate to shoot a .22 rifle at a target range will be less intrigued by the possibility of surreptitiously playing with a pistol found in a closet. From the mid- 1950s to the late '70s, teenage suicide rose sharply, and most of the increase was due to gun suicides. But since then, the teenage suicide rate has risen slowly, and so has the percentage of suicides involving guns.
Teenagers are still less likely to commit suicide than any older age group.
They often cite false statistics to justify their sense of urgency. But this figure is valid only if one counts all suicides as handgun suicides, or if one calls every person under 25 a teenager. In addition to exaggerating the extent of the problem, gun control supporters simply assume that fewer firearms would mean fewer suicides. One might speculate that the presence of a gun can turn a teenager's fleeting impulse into an irrevocable decision. If guns were less readily available, perhaps suicide would decline.