Easton shooting: Why is it easy for a 13-year-old to get a gun in Columbus? | Robinson
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor. She is a life-long Ohioan.
Memories of my last school fight flashed in my head as I read news about the teenage fight a week ago at Easton Town Center that turned deadly.
My fight happened way back in seventh grade. The "motive" was important in our 13-year-old brains, but in retrospect, a very stupid reason to go to blows.
A 13-year-old gossip told her friend that I used a swear word I would have never uttered at the time because I was a nerd and a goody two shoes.
More: What we know about the Easton Town Center shooting on Sunday night
That gossip's friend confronted me, and we fought for two or so minutes after school the following day in a field a few blocks from the school. A crowd of other kids watched on.
My opponent and I were suspended for three days and perhaps a little bruised, but we lived to tell the tale — and eventually make up.
Fights with fists rarely come with the finality that often accompany fights with guns. Hindsight and growth can follow.
That fight flooded into my mind when I read that two 13-year-olds have been arrested in connection with the shooting of death of 15-year-old Ra'Shawyn Anthony Carter Jr. in an outside area at Easton, a popular shopping, dining and entertainment destination.
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Violence was reality when I was 13, but guns were far harder to obtain.
Under the gun
The Easton shooting was among a slew of recent firearm related tragedies that include the death of 43-year-old Good Samaritan Alejandro Fajardo-Torres who interceded in a robbery inside an AutoZone auto parts store near Polaris Fashion Place Thursday and that of 19-year-old Nathaniel Joe-Summerall.
Joe-Summerall was killed Saturday during a fight in a Dairy Queen parking lot at 1519 Schrock Road.
The motive has not been released for the shooting at Easton other than it was a fight and what witnesses described as a large crowd of kids.
The "why" is nearly immaterial.
Kids fight. The inaction and/or negligence of adults is the reason those fights can so easily involve guns and escalations to death.
Put simply, nothing can justify that a 13-year-old could get his hands on a gun.
There is nothing that can justify that a Columbus son will no longer feel the warmth of a hug. Nothing can justify that a 13-year-old is charged with delinquency murder or that a third is charged with a delinquency count of obstructing justice for allegedly lying to police.
As Assistant Columbus police Chief Greg Bodker said at a press conference following the shooting, "these are people who should not have guns in the first place."
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The city is overrun with guns.
Parents must step up as Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther outlined in that news conference.
"Know where your kids are — who they're with and if they're involved with any violent activities. Do they have firearms? Go through their backpacks. Go through their rooms. We need you to be fully engaged in helping to keep your kids and our city safe," he said.
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But neither parents, police or local governments can do this alone.
Ohio lawmakers for years have scoffed at the public's clear cry for basic gun laws.
Most in Ohio's Republican-dominated General Assembly cover their ears and shut their eyes as shots ring out and bodies drop.
There is plenty that can be done. It is time to demand that lawmakers protect Ohioans.
Make them see and hear you.
The battle between Ohio's major cities and Statehouse leaders — many whom come from rural communities and smaller towns and cities — is putting Columbus' future in jeopardy.
But it is not city vs. rural area and small towns when it comes to the desire for sensible gun measures.
The overwhelming majority of Ohioans — roughly nine out of 10 — support mandatory background checks for gun buyers and that people receive training before obtaining a concealed weapons permit, according to a recent USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University survey.
More than 75% of the 500 Ohioans surveyed from around the state supported liability laws mandating safe storage of guns.
"I'm calling on everybody to call their legislators — in Congress, but particularly in the Statehouse. Tell them to do something about the guns flooding our streets," Ginther said Sunday. "There's a proliferation of guns in our neighborhoods and our city and cities across this country. If the legislature won't take action, get out of our way. Let us do our jobs. We know what we need to do to keep our city safe, our officers safe, our families safe."
Democratic legislators have introduced a slew of bills in recent months aimed at curtailing gun violence.
Only three have had hearings:
House Bill 170, a red-flag law that would allow for temporarily removing firearms from people who are a danger to themselves or others.
House Bill 175, which would require safe storage of firearms. The bill authorizes a tax credit for the purchase of safety storage equipment.
House Bill 217, which would require that gun trigger locks be attached and provided with firearms sales by federally licensed firearms dealers.
Urgency to act
Protecting the community is not akin to taking away Second Amendment rights.
The right to bear arms is critical to our democracy, but it should not be so easy for guns to fall into the wrong hands.
Guns definitely should not fall so easily into the hands of a 13-year-old.
To reach its full potential in all senses of the word, Columbus can no longer live with the reality that kids can so easily obtain firearms and fall victim to gun violence.
Children here and around the nation are effectively being armed and subjected to the slaughter.
In 2022, gun violence remained the leading cause of death for children and teens, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions analysis of newly released provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The gun death rate for the group rose 87% between 2013 and 2022.
Black children and teens disproportionately have a homicide rate 20 times higher than white children and teens. The gun suicide rate for Black teens is also higher than the suicide rate for white teens for the first time, Johns Hopkins says.
Violence of any kind is unacceptable, but kids will find reasons to fight. Most of it will be over kid stuff that if granted hindsight, the kids will grow to recognize as trivial.
Thirteen-year-olds should be able to grow up and realize those childhood fights were not important in the grand scheme.
Because of guns flooding our streets, the kind of intellectual and emotional growth that typically comes with age will not be possible in the case of the alleged shooter and victim at the center of the Easton shooting.
One child is dead, and another accused of his murder.
One life lost, the other forever changed.
One city mourns.
The gun violence has to stop.
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor. She is a life-long Ohioan.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Easton shooting| Why is it so easy for kids to get guns in Columbus?
