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  • The Marshall Project

    I Was Too Young to Own a Gun

    “I take full responsibility for my actions. I killed a man. Still, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if we’d met just a few years later...if I didn’t have a gun.”
    by Jerry Metcalf Apr 02, 2018 3 minutes

    Last month’s mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, reignited debate over gun control in the United States with a special focus on the legal minimum age for gun ownership. Many on both sides of the aisle have argued that our laws currently put guns in the hands of young people who lack the emotional maturity to use them responsibly. Having spent the last 22 years in prison for shooting a man to death when I was 20 years old, I’d have to

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