Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, December 13, 1993 TAG: 9312130114
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Juveniles from those urban neighborhoods who have been arrested overwhelmingly say that guns were nearly always part of their environment.
More than one out of five male high school students surveyed in crime-ridden neighborhoods reported owning a gun, according to the Justice Department. Eighty-three percent of the juveniles who had been incarcerated admitted that they had a range of firepower readily available to them.
The report - based on interviews conducted in 1991 with nearly 1,600 male youths in California, New Jersey, Louisiana and Illinois - offers more evidence about the availability of firearms to juveniles in neighborhoods where violence often has become part of life.
Its release Sunday comes at the end of a week during which the Clinton administration - spurred by a shooting spree that left six dead and 17 wounded on a New York commuter train - has tried to focus the nation on the issue of gun violence.
The potential for violence by some youths in certain neighborhoods is great, said the report, conducted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. At one school, a juvenile, when asked a question about the caliber of his gun, pulled it "from his jacket to examine it before responding," according to the report.
The question, the report concludes, is not whether these young people will get guns - but whether society can "convince youths they can survive in their neighborhood without them."
An overwhelming number of juveniles who were students and inmates stated that they felt guns were needed for self-defense.
"For the majority of the respondents, self-protection in a hostile and violent world was the chief reason to own and carry a gun," the report states.
About 45 percent of the 758 students interviewed at 10 inner-city public high schools said they had been threatened with a gun or had been shot at on the way to or from school during the previous few years. Nearly the same number said they had friends "who routinely carried guns."
"Purchasing guns through legitimate channels was fairly common among respondents," according to the report, with juveniles regularly asking others, probably adults, to buy guns for them.
But the students, who averaged 17 years of age, were also able to get their weapons from a variety of sources. They obtained them not only from family, friends and gun shops - but also from persons on the street, drug dealers and addicts. Some were obtained by theft.
Many of the students and inmates reported owning three - or more - guns.
Of the 835 inmates surveyed, almost half said they could be described as gun peddlers because they had bought, sold or traded scores of guns.
Most of the inmates, who were paid $5 to do the interviews, had committed robbery or burglary and had dealt drugs or worked for someone who sold drugs.
The problem of juveniles and firearms has come under increasing scrutiny as evidence mounts that the combination of weapons and immaturity is volatile.
In 1992, 2,829 juveniles were arrested on murder charges in the United States, roughly 2 1/2 times more than were arrested for the same crime in 1984, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which recently began a program to trace all weapons recovered from youths.
Pending legislation, backed by President Clinton, would prohibit juveniles from purchasing or possessing handguns under most circumstances.
The measure would make it a federal crime to sell or to give a gun to anyone under age.
by CNB