Look at the extreme circumstances some criminals will go through, nothing will stop them.

The Leftists who push kids never are going to take the blame.

..how far to go?

Maybe these laws are an attempt to go back in time, e.g., did your great great whatever kill a black slave? ..how far back to go?

Typical breakdown (recent years, ages ~10–17 or under 18)

Suffocation / hanging: Usually the most common method by number of deaths. It accounts for a large share (often the plurality or majority in many recent tabulations) of youth suicides.

Firearms: The second most common method and frequently the leading method among adolescent males. Firearms typically account for roughly 30–45% of youth suicides in recent data, depending on the exact age range and year. Because firearms have a very high case-fatality rate, they contribute disproportionately to deaths even when used less often than other methods.

Poisoning / overdose (drugs, medications, etc.): Third most common. More frequent among females than males, but with a lower fatality rate than firearms or hanging.

Other methods (falls, cutting, etc.): Make up a much smaller share.

Primary sources are CDC WONDER (Underlying Cause of Death) and the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS).

Your argument that if a gun isn’t available they’ll just use another method is valid, but not a reason to not try and limit access to firearms by juveniles, IMO.

Wow. No one is suggesting laws like NZ. With the use of biometric locks, the weapons are still available for home defense.

If they can’t find a gun, they’ll just use a machete is an interesting argument for not restricting access to firearms from juveniles– but have you tried buying a machete in the US?

Young men and guns can be dangerous I stored one pistol, locked up when my son was young and I purchased ammunition when we were on our way out to shoot and we would shot all of it up before we came back home. When my son was in college and lived up in Colorado he had my old .22 rifle and he did a bit of shooting with it then. My son had been through a Boy Scout hunter safety class and he knew enough when he was over 18 to store and take care of his rifle. Now at 54 years old my son does a lot of 3-Gun and Steel Challenge completion over several states and he runs some the competitions. He has a 13 year old daughter who has her own .22 rifle that like the rest of his guns is kept locked up in a gun safe until they go out to shoot.

As for my house, when my grandsons still lived in our town I always had all of my guns locked up and now I do keep one pistol close to my bed and the rest of my guns are always under lock and key when I leave the house, carrying my one loaded pistol with me. Allowing young people access to any type of fire arm is always a risk, a bad day for most adults is just a bad day and a bad day for a young teenager may be such a disaster that it is perceived to be the end of the world. At times it does become the end of lots of other folks world when the feelings are acted out.

I am a current NRA Range Safety Officer and I help out with matches and I have taught a lot of young folks how to safely use guns. For the past several years my granddaughter who lives in Colorado has come down to Abilene, Texas for out annual dove hunt, using her over/under .410 which is hard to use she drops a few birds each year and she is great cleaning birds for all us old folks. She has respect for guns and wildlife and that’s important to pass own down to each generation.

I am all for teaching youngsters how to shoot and I also know it is important for the parents to control the situations where and when they shoot and access to all fire arms at all times. This is a different world from my younger days when I could come home from school in the 7th grade, pick up my single shot .22 and walk out of town to shoot rabbits. I felt kind of great when I would bring a nice cotton-tail rabbit home, dress it out and my mom would cook it up for me to share with my grandmother who was born in the 1870’s and love the taste of wild rabbit, biscuits and gravy. My dad talked gun safety to me when I started shooting and he made a simple statement that I remember to this day, he said, “When you point a gun towards a person you made a decision that the person could die, a life and death decision. When a trigger is pulled the bullet will go on its way where the gun was pointed and it can never be brought back.”

Sorry, I kind of wrote too much here but I do take the gun thing seriously and I think we are responsible for the outcome of the use of all of our guns.

Your straw man statement that making it more difficult to get the gun will save them is made up fantasy. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

Neo, we lived in New Zealand for 4 years–gun laws are very strict there–hard to get a firearm, especially a handgun, and it must be disassembled with parts in different areas of the house and no ammo stored with any part of the gun. So, effectively useless as a home defense method.

Many murders were with machetes.

When we lived in Shanghai, the Chinese’ favored mass killing weapon was the big meat cleaver-like knives they use in the kitchen. Many school killings where crazed older men would attack schools and slash children and teachers alike to death. They’d get a score or more victims before they could be subdued.