One in 4 Colorado teens reported they could get access to a loaded gun within 24 hours, according to survey results published Monday. Nearly half of those teens said it would take them less than 10 minutes.
“That’s a lot of access and those are short periods of time,” said Virginia McCarthy, a doctoral candidate at the Colorado School of Public Health and the lead author of the research letter describing the findings in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The results come as Coloradans are reeling from yet another school shooting. On March 22, a 17-year-old student shot and wounded two school administrators at East High School in Denver. Police later found his body in a nearby park and confirmed he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Another East High student was fatally shot in February while sitting in his car outside the school.
