America’s youth are living and dying by the gun: Let’s raise the gun age

Like far too many young people in America, our lives have been permanently stained by the blood lost to America’s gun violence epidemic. But instead of succumbing to numbness and painting gun violence as inevitable, we have turned our grief into action. The fight for gun safety is a decision that countless young people have made with us, and it’s one that has been forced on America’s youth. 

One of us didn’t know that a self-loathing teenager buying an AR-15-style rifle would manifest into a massacre that, on Valentine’s Day in 2018, would take their sister, Carmen Schentrup, and 16 others in their school in Parkland, Fla. At 10 years old, the other didn’t expect to move to a town that had been recently traumatized by a school shooting of its own and witness the community struggle in its aftermath.

Yet, our stories are far from unique. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., surpassing all other causes of death. That’s no surprise, given how few limits many states impose on firearm ownership. In many states, it’s easier to obtain a firearm than it is to get a driver’s license and a car. That is a deadly choice our leaders have made.

As young people ourselves, we recognize just how dangerous it is to arm still-developing youth with such uniquely deadly weapons. From Sandy Hook to Parkland, to Uvalde and so many other communities across the country that few remember, young people have been on both sides of the gun. 

In 2020, 26 percent of gun homicide victims were 18 to 24 years old, despite composing only 9 percent of the population. Suicide by firearm is especially devastating, with American teenagers taking their lives with a gun every seven hours on average from 2019 to 2020. Too often, young people are both hurt and killed looking down the barrel of a gun and also are the trigger pullers. That’s unacceptable. 

The Texas legislature is currently debating raising the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles to 21, an effort championed by families of Uvalde families — though it faces near-certain failure in a legislature hostile to responsible gun ownership. In Florida, the opposite battle is being fought as lawmakers threaten to lower the firearm purchasing age from 21 to 18, reversing the exact legislation enacted following the Parkland shooting. 

Even still, 23 states and Washington D.C. already allow firearms to be purchased at just 18 years old. Meanwhile, study after study shows how effective raising the minimum age is at curbing gun violence, including curbing firearm suicides among young people significantly. If we care about saving children’s lives, we must fight for raising the minimum age. 

So we’ve turned to advocacy to fight for just that. We are now the organizing manager at Team ENOUGH and a legal associate at March For Our Lives. Recently, we joined forces, along with Junior Newtown Action Alliance, to form the Youth Judicial Gun Violence Prevention Coalition: a team of young survivors, activists, seasoned attorneys and litigators who tackle Second Amendment issues impacting young people. 

When it comes to youth issues, there’s no better advocate inside and outside the court than young people ourselves. That’s why we defend the Constitution and young people’s right to not be shot.

It’s a moral imperative for our leaders at every level to protect young people from gun violence, and courts across the country have agreed. We know that gun safety legislation, like raising the minimum age, is constitutional and effective. Yet, some lawmakers refuse to take action.

But the fact is, the longer lawmakers wait cowering in fear of bogus lawsuits and taking hush money from the gun lobby, the more children will cower in fear of bullets. This is a matter of life or death. It’s far past time to stop burying friends, children and loved ones and instead take immediate, meaningful action to stop the gun violence epidemic. It will take a holistic approach to get there, but raising the minimum age is a step in the right direction. 

It pains us to question whether raising the minimum age would have kept our loved ones and communities safe from gun violence, but we’re steadfast in saving the next young person from dying looking down the barrel of a gun. It’s time to raise the minimum age now.

Yvin Shin is a legal associate at March For Our Lives. Robert Schentrup is the organizing manager at Team ENOUGH and the brother of Parkland High School shooting victim, Carmen Schentrup.