
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 27, 1994                   TAG: 9402270057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

MORE AND MORE, GUNS USED IN VIOLENT CRIMES

Violent crime has decreased over the past decade, but criminals are increasingly more likely to be armed with guns, the Justice Department said Saturday.

Offenses committed with pistols and revolvers rose from 9.2 percent of crimes in 1979 to 12.7 percent in 1992, according to the department's National Crime Victimization Survey.

Americans experience an average of 6.7 million violent crimes - rapes, robberies and assaults - each year. The annual number of violent crimes involving arms averaged about 858,000 from 1987 to 1992, said the report, which was released by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The FBI reported 16,000 firearm murders in 1992, and the number of all violent crimes with firearms reported to the FBI grew 55 percent from 1987 to 1992, from 365,709 to 565,575, the report said.

Data for the report was collected from national surveys of households and prisons and from information the FBI receives from more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide.

From 1987 to 1992, victims faced armed offenders in 5.1 million violent incidents and in 85,453 murders and non-negligent homicides. In just under 1 million of these incidents, 880,000 people were injured and 85,000 were killed.

The most frequent victims of firearm violence were teen-agers between 16 and 19, the report said.

Armed crimes committed against this age group was 21 percent higher than those reported by youths 20 to 24.

by CNB