The Big Reason Young People Don鈥檛 Debate Gun Control the Way Adults Do

A dramatic 25-year reduction in gun violence among youth puts high schoolers in a unique position to influence debate.

Gun control advocates are celebrating the thousands of teenagers demanding that gun massacres like the latest at Parkland, Florida鈥檚, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 鈥溾€澛爃appen. But does politics offer a remedy? Gun violence discussion among adults is already retreating once again into an easy consensus: the problem is just about 鈥渒ids鈥濃€攄eranged young shooters, and protecting 鈥渃hildren鈥� terrified of . Quick are emerging from the White House and other political leaders: just raise the age for firearms purchases, pack schools with more cops, arm the teachers, install more security hardware, and widen the net of intrusive 鈥渕ental health鈥� regimes targeting young misfits. But America鈥檚 gun violence epidemic only can be reduced through effective, enforced legislative policies鈥攐r simply by fewer people shooting people. And that is happening. There has been an astonishing 25-year reduction in gun violence and homicide among youth (see charts). This puts high schoolers in a unique position to challenge today鈥檚 narrow political discourse. Those young people who in previous generations might have reached for a gun are doing that far less often in the 2000s. The trend is the same for other negative behaviors: Those who might have dropped out of school are staying in. The criminal element is going straight. Their homophobic and xenophobic cohorts have dwindled, and most youth are opting for tolerance and integration. Fewer young women are experiencing unplanned pregnancies.

Today鈥檚 Millennials and younger Generation Zers are living those changes, and they鈥檙e adding up. In New York City and Los Angeles, a racially diverse generation of middle- and high-school students reduced gun homicides from a total 447 in 1990 to 42 in 2016. Across the country, school-age teens 12-17 show a drop in gun homicide rates more than double that of other ages. Today, they鈥檙e actually safer from gun homicide than their parents. Old theories no longer explain youth behaviors. Gun control laws are weaker and youth poverty remains high. Older generations are displaying more negative behaviors, such as drug abuse and crime. Social programs have been cut back, higher education costs have skyrocketed, and popular culture has become more explicit. And yet, Millennials and Gen Z are showing dramatic improvements in every locale (teenage are down 70 percent in Idaho, and are down 65 percent in Texas, for example). They are most pronounced among young women, in cities (especially global ones like New York City and Los Angeles) and in areas where immigrants make up a large share of the youth population. Today鈥檚 youth could be described as 鈥減ost-sociology.鈥� That is, as a generation, they no longer act like the popular stereotype and conventional social-science construct of the risk-taking, impulsive teenager. The Millennial/Gen Z signature move seems to be this: 鈥渟olve鈥� social problems not through political reform but by reducing those problems to irrelevancy.

Teenagers killed by gun haven鈥檛 disappeared from New York City and L.A., but they鈥檙e down 91 percent over the last generation. by teen mothers still happen there, but they鈥檝e fallen from 40,000 a year to 9,000. Youths still , but just one-third as many as in the past. There remains the occasional young shooter whom the commentariat misperceives as the new poster child for gun violence. But in looking at the generations as a whole, Millennials/Zers are contributing to large, overall reductions in American gun violence鈥攅ven if legislators turn their backs on legal reforms pushed by student movements. I believe positive youth trends are a massive counter-reaction by younger people against the disastrous increases in addiction, crime, and imprisonment that their parents鈥� generation is suffering. Pundits marvel at the size of the women鈥檚 marches and the student uprising against guns. They point to how Millennials paved the way for gay rights not through legislative action, but by normalizing homosexuality as routine. Sexual harassment is going the same way, although slowly. Statistical and survey evidence suggest enhanced global interconnectedness among today鈥檚 youth is yielding a revolution in behaviors and attitudes. only occasionally resembles the kind of policy-manifesto, demand-specific political movement older generations recognize. The young are not trapped in age-old talking points and battles; their startling behavior improvements are largely the product of the unique interconnections modern technology and evolving tolerance are making available.

Experience shows more armed grownups in schools is definitely not the answer.

The real , where today鈥檚 young can freely access the most positive aspects of worldwide diversity. These interconnections may be more intense in larger cities where there are more personal contacts and closer interactions with more diverse populations, plus a broader array of services. But online connectivity augments those contacts and facilitates them almost everywhere in the country, helping to reverse the old stereotypes of self-obsessed, danger-seeking adolescence and isolated, troubled people. will have to shift to understand this evolution. We need young people鈥檚 help. Adults鈥� ideas to聽reduce聽聽have not worked. Children and teenagers suffer the same proportions of in states with high for gun purchases as in those without; shootings occur in schools that have armed guards (as was the case in Parkland, Florida), schools with advanced security technology, and so on. Experience shows more armed grownups in schools is definitely not the answer. A number of 鈥溾€� in the last year alone actually involved guns brought into schools by , a , , and a . Examination shows that around 9 in 10 don鈥檛 specifically target schools; they involve society鈥檚 problems spilling into schools. As many (including mass shooters) are over age 40 as are under 25. have many more shootings, and home鈥攏ot school鈥攁re by far for a child to suffer a gun homicide. Adding 750,000 to 1 million more guns in schools (the math behind the to arm six to eight teachers per school) would only multiply gun problems. It is understandable that the 鈥溾€� student movement born of a horrific school shooting is focused on schools and the particular 20-year-old shooter. But the two dozen or so every year cannot be addressed without confronting the thousands of gun homicides that occur nowhere near a school. Political leaders should not get to take the easy way out by narrowly scapegoating young people and schools for America鈥檚 gun crisis. This sudden, new student movement can revolutionize America鈥檚 gun debate the same way its generation is changing the environment of gun violence if it challenges the broader culture. Gun control advocates can work with Millennials鈥� and Zers鈥� strengths鈥攏ot by slandering them as violent and demeaning them as helpless victims, and not just by temporarily championing them as energized advocates for established lobbies鈥� political agendas, but as a genuine representatives of real change with something new to say.

Mike Males is a senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, the principal investigator for YouthFacts, and the author of five books on American youth.

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