CHICAGO (WLS) — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker took steps on Monday to strengthen laws to protect children from accidental shootings in their homes.

Advocates hope it will prevent the kinds of tragedies they say happens all too frequently.

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The law is called “Safe At Home.” It says that if there is a child 18 or younger in the home that guns must be locked up or otherwise secured. The previous age was 13. The goal is to reduce the number of shootings that advocates say are preventable.

In March, an Englewood family lost a 13-year-old boy who was hanging out with his uncle and playing with his uncle’s gun when it accidentally went off.

Gun safety advocates say so far this year, more than 100 children across the country have been victims of unintentional shootings.

“I’m tired, frankly, of treating something completely preventable as inevitable. I’m tired of forcing our children to duck and cover because too many politicians are ducking and covering for the gun industry’s money,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker, surrounded by lawmakers and gun safety advocates, signed into law a measure aimed at reducing accidental shootings by strengthening the law requiring adults to keep guns secured when anyone under 18 is in the home.

“It’s a life-saving standard. It prevents accidents. It prevents suicides. It keeps firearms away from those who should never have access,” Rep. Maura Hirschauer, D-Batavia.

Pastor Donavan Price prayed with the family at the hospital after that shooting in March.

He says he responds to these types of cases far too often, including one in Grand Crossing just days before. Police say three boys were fighting in a house when one grabbed a gun, killing an 8-year-old and wounding a 5-year-old.

“Well, it’s the typical heartbreak of a child being shot,” Price said. “There’s an extra level of difficulty and almost anger or emotion about the, you know, the fact that, you know, sometimes this could have been avoided.”

The governor also signed another law on Monday that will require all law enforcement agencies across the state to report information about recovered crime guns to the ATF’s e-trace system. Some agencies, apparently, have not been doing that, hampering the tracing of those weapons.

“Such that we’re not only capturing the bad actor that pulls the trigger, but we’re capturing those who traffic the guns into the hands of people who will do harm to our children and others with them,” said Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

“Gun violence is still the number one killer of children and teens in our state, but all of these things as they are enforced and enacted over time. We’re making a dent in that. I feel confident that we’re moving in the right direction,” said G-PAC President and CEO Kathleen Sances.

Lawmakers say they have launched a public awareness campaign to get the word out about the new gun safety requirements. The bill also requires gun owners to report a missing or stolen weapon within 48 hours. It had previously been 72 hours.