Kids’ access to guns cause for concern

Tuesday, April 27, 1999 | 11:11 a.m.

The massacre at a Colorado high school is a week old, and adults across the nation are calling for everything from bans on black trench coats to tougher gun controls.

Even President Clinton got into the act, unveiling today new gun-control legislation.

But Clark County records suggest that illegally obtained guns aren't the primary problem here.

From 1994 to 1997, 72 percent of the guns children possessed when they broke the law were legally registered to their owners, according to figures from the county's Department of Family and Youth Services.

"The biggest problem is just kids having access to any firearm," Fritz Reese, the agency's assistant director, said.

During that four-year period, youth services authorities logged 318 incidents of children having guns when they were arrested, records show. Figures for last year still are being compiled, Reese said.

Of those 318 guns, only 90 were unregistered or had been reported stolen, records show.

No matter what side of the gun-control issue a person is on, those numbers suggest that registration constraints aren't keeping kids from obtaining guns, said Ron Montoya, who owns American Shooters Supply and Gun Club.

And making it harder to get guns only blurs the issue of personal responsibility on the parts of gun owners and those people who use guns to commit crimes.

"What happened in Colorado, it's such a major tragedy," Montoya said. "And when something like this happens what we (gun dealers) brace ourselves for is the media's and politicians' use of this to put blame on the tool used.

"But this issue isn't whether they have accessibility to the weapons," he said. "It's the kids."

Last Tuesday's shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., left 15 dead. The two students responsible for the attack killed themselves.

Teens Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold carried four guns in their assault. Authorities have traced two to separate dealers through their serial numbers. The teens reportedly were members of a group called "the trench coat Mafia."

Firearm owners should keep them locked up, Montoya said. Parents need to exert more control and know more about what their kids are doing.

"To point a finger at the tool being used doesn't mean squat," he said. "A little common sense is all it takes."

In fact, Clinton's gun-control legislation would hold negligent parents liable when their children commit crimes with guns.

The measure would set mandatory prison sentences of three to 10 years and $10,000 fines for adults, including parents, who allow children access to guns whenever a juvenile crime is committed.

It would also make buyers of explosives subject to the same Brady law background checks as gun purchasers, require child-safety locks on all guns sold, extend the ban on juvenile possession of handguns to include semiautomatic assault rifles and impose a lifetime ban on gun ownership for people who commit violent crimes as juveniles.

North Las Vegas Police Lt. Joe Forti says the fact that most guns kids use are legally registered is not a big surprise.

"Dishonest people are going to get guns. The kids are going to be able to get hold of the guns," Forti said.

Legally owned guns that are left in unlocked areas or locked in areas children know how to open might as well be left on the coffee table. Bad things happen, even if teenagers or children merely want to look at them or show them to friends.

All it takes is one slip, and "boom."

"It's not uncommon," the lieutenant said.

Banning guns completely isn't the answer because it's not enforceable, Forti said. Thousands of them already are on the market and in households across the nation. Whole industries would have to be shut down.

"I think it all boils down to responsibility," Forti said. "Parents and certainly gun owners on the whole need to take responsibility."

In the days that followed last the Colorado shooting, police uncovered about 50 homemade bombs.

This was not about gun control, Forti said.

"It was the kids who did the killing, and these kids took it to a whole new level," he said. "This situation was unbelievable."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.