Aubrey

This is Aubrey Peters, age 16, of Noblesville, Indiana. You can tell she’s a happy person. Her high school principal described her as a “great student”, a “quality student”, who always has a smile on her face. One more thing: Aubrey is also a hero.

She’s a hero because on March 10, 2010, she helped rescue two small children who fell through the ice on a frozen pond. She didn’t see it happen but she heard them screaming and ran to help. The Red Cross recognized her heroism with a Hall of Fame Award.

This is Jacob McDaniel, a graduate of Noblesville High School. According to police, on December 9, 2013, Aubrey and two friends were visiting Jacob at his house. Jacob wanted to show Aubrey his gun. He wanted her to hold it, but she refused. Believing the gun was not loaded, Jacob pointed the gun at Aubrey and pulled the trigger. The gun fired a bullet into Aubrey’s chest. She died at a local hospital. Allegedly, Jacob told his friends to tell police the gun “fell off a table and went off.” Jacob is in jail and may spend years in prison. One day he’ll be out of prison, and then he’ll have a chance at a life – a chance Aubrey will never have.

Aubrey has plenty of company. From 2000 to 2010 75,944 children in the U.S. died from gun violence. If you pick 75,944 people at random, how many would be doctors and nurses? How many would be inventors? How many would be celebrities … singers, dancers, actors, athletes? How many would discover how to treat an incurable disease, design the tallest building, start a company? How many would write a best-seller, explore a new world, establish a charity? Because when we kill, or allow to be killed, 75,944 children, we’re also killing 75,944 adults – the adults those children never had a chance to become.