If you believe that tragedy can be avoided by making sure guns are not in the places where adolescents live, visit or work -- please join us and pledge that you will make it a gun-free zone if adolescents are in the home.
In the wake of the horrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and so many others involving adolescents and guns (including suicide) we must raise our voices and do something to reduce access to guns during what can be a troubling phase for so many of our youth.
While most may consider "adolescence" to be the tween and teen years, the male brain actually does not finish developing until the mid-20s, meaning this is still a time of adolescence for these young men. In the book "Yes, Your Teen is Crazy" teen psychologist Michael Bradley discusses this as well as how teens can actually have periods of temporary insanity because everything going on in their minds and bodies. He even has a section devoted to pleading parents of adolescents not to have guns in the house even if they think they are locked up (he has first-hand experience that this cannot prevent tragedies).
Additionally, psychological illnesses such as schizophrenia begin to present themselves for the first time during adolescence -- taking many families by surprise.
If you believe that if adolesents are in the home it should be a gun-free zone, please sign our petition and spread the word. It is a matter of life and death.