Most often, children obtain guns out of simple fear. James Clark, vice president of public safety and community response for the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, sums things up with an anecdote. While guest lecturing in a fourth-grade classroom, he asked how many students heard regular gunshots at night.
"All their hands went up without hesitation," Clark recalls. "I might as well have asked, 'Who here likes ice cream?'" One child told Clark, "When I hear shooting outside, my mama come lay on top of me." Then two other students said their mothers did the same.
The day before Clark recounted that story, a thirteen-year-old boy's body had been discovered in East St. Louis. "If you're a thirteen-year-old boy," Clark says, "you look at that and say, 'I'm thirteen. I could get killed. I gotta get me a gun.'"
Judge Sandra Farragut-Hemphill, who presides over juvenile cases for St. Louis County, summarizes the sentiment succinctly. For many thirteen-year-olds who come through her courtroom on gun charges, "their childhood in many ways has been stolen from them."
That observation applies to north-city resident Teshawn Ford. Four years ago, when he was eleven, a cousin was locked in a car and murdered, Teshawn recalled in an interview. That led to a retaliation, which prompted another retaliation, and Teshawn's house was riddled with bullets. At age twelve, he watched one victim stumble inside his house after getting shot twice in the stomach. "That ain't nothing no kid want to grow up around," he said. "Every little noise had me jumping. It shows you how fast you could straight be gone."
Asked if it was normal for thirteen-year-olds to have guns, he seemed astonished by the question. "Half of St. Louis have guns! It's so pitiful how anyone can get a gun. And it ain't no little guns. It's assault rifles."
Eric Harris of the Urban League, who became Teshawn's mentor, called him a kid "with a good head on his shoulders" who was forced to adapt to the "war zone" surrounding him.
Not long ago, Teshawn purchased a Glock 17 and a Taurus 40 from friends. "I used to play sports," he reflected. "Now I look over my back every five or ten minutes. I'm only fifteen. Why do I have to look over my back?"
Teshawn's interview with the RFT occurred last year. Last month, while trading guns with another teenager, he was shot dead.
