MOUNT MORRIS TOWNSHIP, Michigan -- A 6-year-old girl was shot to death in her classroom Tuesday by a first-grade classmate with a stolen handgun, authorities said. .
Kayla Rolland died at 10:29 a.m. of a single gunshot wound to the chest after being rushed to Hurley Medical Center by Emergency Medical Service workers, who said she was in cardiac arrest. .
The suspected shooter was a 6-year-old boy who pulled a handgun from his pants pocket and fired one shot, Mount Morris Township Police Chief Eric King said. .
The weapon, a .32-caliber handgun, was reported stolen in December, Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur A. Busch said, and it "somehow got in the boy's house," where he lived with his mother. .
According to King, the boy was apprehended in a bathroom by the teacher and school principal after he had thrown the gun into a wastebasket. .
These have been stories of innocent people who have been killed by a gun. One of the leading arguments in today's society is the problem with guns. Why is gun-control such a hot-topic? Here are some startling statistics that will show you why this is looked at in such depth.
While the overall gun-related death rate in the United States has fallen in recent years, there's still no other country in the industrialized world where more children die from guns. .
New York Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy is the emotional lighting rod in Congress for handgun control proponents. Six years ago, her husband was killed and her son wounded here. . . on a Long Island, New York, train. . . by an assailant with a handgun. .
Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy .
"How many more guns are we going to hand over to criminals?- .
Kids and Guns.
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Children in the United States are at far greater risk of homicide death than their counterparts in other countries. According to a 1997 survey by the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of firearm deaths among American children aged 14 and under is nearly 12 times higher than among children in the other 25 industrialized countries combined.
