Four days before a 15-year-old sophomore killed four students and wounded others at a high school shooting in Michigan, his father purchased the firearm used in the attack.

That the teenager used a weapon from home during the Nov. 30 attack is not unusual. Most school shooters obtain the firearm from home. And the number of guns within reach of high school-age teenagers has increased during the pandemic – highlighting the importance of locking firearms and keeping them unloaded in the home.

Since the onset of the public health crisis, firearm sales have spiked. Many of these firearms have ended up in households with teenage children, increasing the risk of accidental or intentional injury or fatalities, or death by suicide.

As experts on firearm violence and firearm injury prevention, we know that active shooter events within school settings in the U.S. have increased substantially in the years running up to the pandemic. Meanwhile, our research indicates that in the early months of the public health crisis, more families with teenage children purchased firearms – increasing the potential risk that a teen could gain unsupervised access to a firearm.

Read more at The Conversation: https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USSchoolShootingMichigan/42d4132307524063b37c20c3e48d5011/photo?Query=school%20shooting&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=11904¤tItemNo=10

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