Posted on 09/07/2005 8:35:09 AM PDT by cbkaty
Survey offers broad view of firearms in the home
GUNS AT HOME
The 2002 survey of 241,000 adults is the first to provide data on gun storage nationwide: • Nationally: 33 percent of adults said they kept firearms in or around their home.
• Highest: 63 percent in Wyoming had firearms in the home.
• Lowest: 5 percent had guns at home in the District of Columbia, which has long-standing bans on handguns and semiautomatic weapons.
ATLANTA - About 1.7 million U.S. children live in homes that have loaded and unlocked guns, according to what is described as the first comprehensive survey of gun storage in homes across the country.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics, found that 2.5 percent of children live in homes with loaded and unsecured firearms.
Estimates from the early 1990s had put the percentage at 10 percent.
The new results may suggest a decline, but that doesn't mean there's cause for celebration, said Catherine Okoro, a study author.
"That's still too many children to be put at risk," said Okoro, an epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study is based on a 2002 telephone survey of about 241,000 adults and is the first to provide data on gun storage in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, its authors said.
A little more than 4 percent of the respondents nationally said they keep guns loaded and unlocked, and 2.5 percent reported having loaded, unlocked firearms in homes where children lived.
Alabama had the highest proportion — 7.3 percent — of homes in which children lived and guns were kept loaded and unlocked.
The next highest states were Alaska (6.6 percent), Arkansas (6.6 percent), Montana (6.4 percent) and Idaho (5.2 percent).
At bottom was Massachusetts, with 0.3 percent.
Rural connection?
Researchers said they aren't certain why some states reported higher rates than others, but they think people living in rural communities are most likely to have loaded guns in or around the house.
Okoro said she hoped the survey results will be used by state public health officials for intervention programs to prevent firearm deaths.
About 1,400 children are killed by firearms each year, according to CDC estimates.
It's not known how many of those are killed by guns left around the house, the researchers said.
But they noted a Seattle-based study published in a February issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association that showed safe gun storage may prevent deaths.
Oh...Thanks...Big Gubment is on the way to help us again......and I thought all these folks had crawled under a rock for a few years rest after getting the crap kicked out of them so many times......
• Highest: 63 percent in Wyoming had firearms in the home.
• Lowest: 5 percent had guns at home in the District of Columbia, which has long-standing bans on handguns and semiautomatic weapons.
Same skewed results from the same skewed people with a gun grabbing agenda
I wonder how they define "children".
Yes sir, where would you rather live?
Actually, we should be very concerned that the number is so low. After all, our most decorated soldier in WWII, Audie Murphy, was out hunting for food to put on the table as a child...
It is not known how many are saved........by guns in the home...
I wonder which area has the highest accidental firearm deaths DC or Wyoming?
Without the child gun death rate figures by state in this survey it is even less than useless. I live in Alabama and I'd venture to say that though we have the highest percentage of loaded and unlocked guns around children, we are not even close to the highest child gun death rate.
My adult children were raised around loaded unlocked guns and taught how and when to use them. I live in the suburbs but am not rural.
The vast majority of which are 15 to 20 year old gang bangers murdered over drug turf, a smaller number are victims of stray bullets in drive by shootings and an even smaller number are murdered by a relative.
1.7 MILLION CHILDREN LIVE IN SAFETY AND SECURITY, LOCKED AND LOADED!
Anyone under the age of 21.
• Lowest: 5 percent had guns at home in the District of Columbia, which has long-standing bans on handguns and semiautomatic weapons.
Yeah, if I lived there, I would answer the poll honestly. Not.
Yeah right! Who is going to admit to owning an "illegal" gun? )Or else its a very busy 5%.)
I would guess that the number is much higher as many people told them it was none of their effing business.
Dang, I beat your post by, like, 40 seconds! :0)
Interesting. First of all, a phone survey of 241,000 people seems to be quite an undertaking. That is a lot of phone calls, whereas political polls seem to call around 1,200 people.
Second, how likely are they to get an honest answer from those 241,000 citizens? I mean, if someone called me up and said "Do you have guns in your house, and where do you keep them?", I think they'd be unlikely to receive an answer from me at all, let alone an honest one.
Third, I'd guess that it's almost irrelevant what went on in 2002, due to the events of last week. A lot of folks went out and bought guns after 9/11, when a gun gave you a merely psychological advantage over terrorists. I haven't been to the gun store this week, but I'll bet that they are selling like crazy to people who want the very real advantage a gun gives you over a criminal.
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