Every day in the news, you hear about the bad things that are going on in our area, but how often do they give ways to improve them? Firearm deaths in Pennsylvania for children ages 0-18 went from 63 in 2001 to 87 in 2004! A Sunbury women was charged for murdering her newborn child back in 2001, and the most recent homicide was the double homicide on North Fourth Street in Sunbury.

Statistics show that within 46 years, murders increased by 440 deaths. We need to do something about this. What we should do is limit the age for people to be able to buy a weapon. There are too many gun-related deaths. I'm not saying we need to stop allowing people to purchase guns. However, what I do think is that, if people have guns in their home, they have to lock them up and also shouldn't be able to carry a gun around with them, unless they're hunting and they have a hunting license.

The law states that if you're under age 18, you need to have your parent with you to buy a gun. They should be required to lock it up and not be allowed to carry it out and around with them at all. A parent should have to be with them at all times if they want to do anything with their gun. Though my proposal may not do much, it could lower the death count by a lot.

Elizabeth Propst,

Shikellamy High School