If this cover looks familiar, that’s because it is: TIME ran the identical illustration, created by Roy Lichtenstein, on the cover in 1968. Thirty years later, TIME revisited the issue, and while by 1998, gun ownership was on the decline — down to about 40% of American households after staying around 45% for decades — the shock of several recent shootings carried out by people of all ages (but particularly teenagers) brought up the need for renewed conversation about gun control. TIME’s cover story looks into some shocking statistics surrounding gun violence against youth:
Gunfire has increasingly intruded into the possibilities of childhood, and the militant wing of adolescence has brought the possibility home. Recent statistics suggest that 1 in 12 high schoolers is threatened or injured with a weapon each year. And while juvenile crime as a whole is down–down even more dramatically than the already precipitous drop in adult crime–the number of youths murdered by firearms went up 153% from 1985 to 1995.