SOUTH BEND — A few recent incidents highlight a growing problem in South Bend: kids and access to guns.

Last week a Washington High School student was charged with bringing a gun to school and a South Bend man says he was robbed at gunpoint on his front porch by two young men. Police later arrested a man in his early twenties for the crime.

Still, police say kids have no trouble finding guns. Captain Phil Trent of the South Bend Police Department says for the most part kids aren't buying them illegally, but getting them from their own home.

"This is a very difficult problem to combat because the availability of guns to children usually starts at the home or starts at the home of a relative and that's how they are getting their hands on these guns," Trent said.

Trent says people stash guns away and forget about them and they don't realize the gun is gone until something happens.

He says prevention has to start with society and people securing guns in their homes. "It's perfectly legitimate to have a gun in South Bend; however unsecuring them is pretty much the basis of where our problem starts."

Trent says all gun owners should get a gun lock. He says police give them away for free.