摘要：Objectives . We assessed the prevalence and correlates of adolescents’ reports regarding firearms in their homes, of their own, of close friends, and of same-aged peers. Methods . Random-digit-dialed interviews were conducted with 5801 adolescents as part of the California Health Interview Survey. Results . One fifth (19.6%) of California adolescents reported having a firearm in their homes; few (3.0%) reported having their own gun. Characteristics associated with having one’s own gun and with perceptions regarding others’ guns generally were consistent with characteristics associated with having a firearm in the home. The 2 exceptions were related to socioeconomic status and to ethnicity. Conclusions . The source from which adolescents obtain guns, especially adolescents from less wealthy households, merits further investigation. Further research is needed to ascertain the accuracy of Black and Latino adolescents’ perceptions regarding handguns among their peers. Firearms figure prominently in the lives and deaths of US adolescents. About 6% of high school students and 10.3% of male students across the United States reported that they carried a firearm at least once during the past 30 days, 1 and nearly half said, that if they wanted to, they could get a gun. 2 About one fourth reported having easy access to a gun in the home. 3 Crude odds ratios indicate that having a gun in the home is associated with demographic characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, and welfare status. In 2000, 3913 US youths aged 10 to 19 years died from an intentional gunshot wound 4 ; intentional firearm injury is second only to all unintentional injuries as a cause of death for this age group. 5 Although it is illegal, with a few exceptions, for persons under 18 years old to possess a firearm, 6 they are more likely than persons older than 18 years to use a firearm to kill themselves or someone else. 7 For every gun death among 15- to 19-year-old youths, there are nearly 4.5 nonfatal hospital-treated gunshot injuries. 8 We examined the patterns and correlates of knowledge about and possession of firearms in a community-based sample of adolescents. (Research on adolescents and firearms typically uses more specialized samples such as high school students 3, 9– 20 or incarcerated youths 21– 24 from a single, often urban, locale. 9– 12, 24, 25 ) Our first objective was to examine adolescents’ reports of having a firearm in their immediate environment (i.e., in the household or of one’s own) and the demographic correlates of these reports. The second objective was to compare correlates of having a firearm in one’s immediate environment with correlates of perceptions regarding the firearms of other adolescents (close friends and same-aged peers). In addition to firearms in general, we asked specifically about handguns, given that handguns are relatively easy to conceal and are the most common type of weapon used in homicides and suicides. 26– 29
