Report: Juvenile gun arrests double in Boston

By Andrew Shepperson

Juvenile gun arrests in Boston have more than doubled in the first quarter of 2017, according to police data analyzed by the Boston Herald.
So far in 2017, there have been 19 juvenile gun-related arrests, a more than 100 percent uptick from the first three months of last year. The charges range from warrants for previous gun crimes to illegal possession of a firearm.
“Obviously, there are too many guns,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh told the Herald. “I don’t think we’re at epidemic proportions. But the fact that we have one juvenile with a gun is epidemic. We work at this every single day.”
Teenagers such as Carlos Barbosa, who takes part in a youth community group called Teen Empowerment, spoke on how kids would bring guns to middle school, hiding the firearms outside and then retrieving them when school let out.
Barbosa, who lives in the poorer Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, said many just wanted “to protect themselves” from “their own community,” but also noted they were following examples set by their elders.
“The younger kids who, in like sixth grade or fifth grade, don’t really know, like, the power of a gun, they just have it, say, ‘Oh I have a gun, I’m cool,

Source: Guns.com