Abstrakt
This contribution deliberates on the selected aspects of gun-related juvenile delinquency. It is being submitted in the time when our international news services are frequently delivering news about shocking rampage shootings in schools or other public spaces, but, luckily, we have not been experiencing this kind of incidents in our country so far.
Therefore, it is all the more important to concentrate our attention on the relationships between youth and firearms. I firstly show that rampage shootings in countries with a tradition of juvenile delinquency involving the use of firearms account for a negligible proportion of all incidents; however, in comparison with chronic gun-related criminality in disadvantaged communities, which the society has got accustomed to, they tend to attract massive attention of public due to their deviousness and inconceivability.
I consider important to begin with a question what brings the youth to commit crimes with a gun in their hand. What are the individual and social factors that increase the risk of such delinquency and, on the other hand, what are the factors that can protect them from it.
In criminology, we talk about risk and protective factors for a certain socio-pathologic phenomenon, or delinquency. I do not consider this paper as an exhaustive analysis of these factors, but rather as a presentation of a few selected interesting thoughts and points for further discussion; what is after all indicated in its title.