Death of a Newsboy

From the time of the colonists, an American's reaction to hearing strange noises in the night has often been to reach for a gun. Every year since John F. Kennedy's assassination with a mailorder rifle, gun-control proponents have trooped to Congress to tick off the toll of an overarmed people overreacting. In a Washington suburb last week, the death of a junior high student delivering newspapers brought the statistics to life. A single blast from a shotgun pointed at the predawn shadows killed 13-year-old Todd McKinney. The college student who shot him thought Todd's footsteps might belong to a prowler making a fifth attempt to tamper with the family's 1964 Comet. McKinney had planned to contribute his October earnings to the re-election campaign of Senator Joseph Tydings--because Tydings has been an outspoken champion of tighter gun laws.

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