Two school buses let children out in front of an apartment building on Linn Street. Across the street, in front of a dwelling bearing burglar bars and an electronic door gate, the bereft mother of a slain 7-year-old keened.

Javonna Williams' eyes were dry. But her tears flowed through the words she shouted to the street, to no one in particular.

"They don't know what they've done," she said. "I was there. I saw his pain. He was in pain."

Little Javontay died Monday night, police said, after a child playing with a gun in a Mount Airy townhouse shot him in the chest.

It was an accident, police believe, but it's hard to piece together the facts.

People aren't telling police everything, including who owned several guns police found at the apartment.

What is clear is a neighborhood is missing one friendly little boy who used to ride his bike and build imaginary forts in a store parking lot next to his home.

Kevin Milline, who owns the grocery store, said Javontay's mother wouldn't let him or his 3-year-old sister play in a neighborhood tot lot a block away, because drug dealers had taken it over.

"It's too dangerous," Milline said.

Javontay's West End neighborhood has drug problems, as does the neighborhood he visited in Mount Airy. There have been shootings and assaults in both in recent months.

But carelessness, not drugs, killed Javontay. Some adult let kids find the guns.

How do we as a community reduce the chances of that happening again?

Our children are over-exposed to guns - even in low-crime neighborhoods. It is estimated that 40 percent of American households have firearms in them; 30 percent of those guns are unlocked and loaded, according to Common Sense About Kids And Guns, a national group.

Nationally, 1,200 kids and teens die from gun accidents and suicides annually. Another 18,000 or more are injured.

Javontay's case is unusual because he died in an inner-city neighborhood, said Dr. Rebeccah Brown, a pediatric surgeon and assistant director for the trauma unit at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

"I don't think of (accidental shootings) as being an inner-city problem. Usually it's kids whose dads are hunters and who find the gun."

In 10 years, Children's has treated 127 gunshot wounds in children; most between the ages of 10 and 14.

"Chances are your children have been somewhere or played somewhere where there's a firearm," said Tracy Cook, executive director of ProKids, which helps abused kids.

The usual precautionary warnings - don't mix kids with guns; lock up your weapon; keep ammunition separate - still apply, even with stolen guns, she said.

"Just because you purchase a gun illegally doesn't mean you can't put a lock on it. Who wants a kid to die?"

No one wanted Javontay to die.

Through family members, Javonna Williams declined to be interviewed for this column. As neighbors and relatives encircled her, she rocked back and forth.

If those who know something about this accident could only see her pain, I bet they'd give police the information they seek about the guns police found in the apartment Javontay visited.

And if the rest of us are realistic about the chances for more accidental shootings - we'd do whatever it takes to keep kids away from guns.

E-mail damos@enquirer.com or phone 768-8395