ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 26, 1996 TAG: 9605290065
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
SOURCE: MURRAY DUBIN PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
TEENS SAY they can access even locked-up guns in their homes. Parents disagree.
The easiest place for children to find guns is not on the mean streets, but in the cozy confines of home.
And even if the weapons are hidden away and locked, most teen-agers say they could get that handgun or rifle without their parents' knowledge. Not surprisingly, parents disagree with the younger generation - most adults say that the in-the-home weapons are secure.
Girls are less comfortable than boys with the idea of weapons in the home; also, they are less often trained to use a weapon than boys.
And three in five of all teens who live in a home where there is a weapon believe they could safely fire that rifle or handgun - whether or not they ever have been taught to shoot.
Those are some of the findings in ``Families Taking Action - A National YWCA Survey About Making Homes and Communities Safer,'' a poll conducted in March and April by Louis Harris & Associates Inc. and released Monday. Approximately 1,900 adults and teen-agers took part in the survey.
Among its findings:
* An estimated 10 million 7th- to 12th-graders say they could get to the weapons in their house without their parents' knowledge.
* Despite statistics to the contrary, adults and teens with guns in the home believe the weapon makes them safer.
* A majority of adults and teen-agers would involve themselves in community efforts to curtail violence and improve race relations.
* Many teens do not believe their parents would participate in such community efforts.
``The findings are fascinating,'' says Prema Mathai-Davis, national executive director of the YWCA. ``Ten million young people have access to guns! Parents don't know that number. And that parents feel guns make them safer. The perception and the reality are so different."
``But the news is not all bad. We were interested in finding out how teen-agers and adults feel on a number of issues. The perception is that racial tensions are worsening and people are not interested, but the study shows adults and teen-agers are interested in improving race relations.''
Paul Fink, a professor of psychiatry at Temple University and an expert in youth violence, was not familiar with the new Harris poll, but said its findings rang true.
Youths' access to guns in the home, the belief that guns are likely to protect, and the feeling of weapons proficiency are ``absolutely true,'' he said.
``Kids watch television so they think they can use guns,'' Fink said. ``It is a common belief in this country that a gun will save your life, but research shows just the opposite. Guns in the house make it easier to kill someone you love when you are angry.''
``We used to fight and go home. Now we go home and get a gun.''
The poll cites a National Center for Health Statistics study published this year that shows firearms accounted for 5,571 deaths of Americans between the ages of 10 and 19 in 1993, and that deaths due to firearms were increasing for that age group faster than for any other.
Tom Wyld, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association in Fairfax, Va., said that self-defense with firearms could not be measured with body counts because ``the majority of self-defense uses of a firearm do not include injury or death.''
He said that ``self-defense often occurred'' by simply showing a weapon.
Wyld said he learned to use a gun properly under his father's tutelage at an NRA range in Philadelphia ``when I was 12, and I did not commit crimes when I was 13.''
According to the poll, which involved 1,004 middle and high school students and 903 adults, 53 percent of all adults say someone kept a handgun or rifle in the house when they were growing up. Three of four adults who keep a handgun or rifle in the home grew up with a weapon in the house.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB