Harris,

I've had a chance to look at the age related ATF data in the 
"The Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative, Crime Gun Trace 
Analysis Report," BATF, October 1998 to examine the justification
for the proposed discrimination against adults under age 21 as
proposed by the Clinton Administration.

Previously, I release a one page analysis examining the histogram
published by the ATF which shows a significant hump in the population
of crime gun possessors in the 18, 19, and 20 year old group.  If you
recall, that histogram lumped all crimes together.  My previous 
response simply showed that the supposed bulge in the ATF
histogram did not appear in the histogram of people sentenced for
Federal Crimes.  My current examination shows that the ATF's own 
data can be used to refute their arguments.  That data addresses 
their youth category containing young adults ages 18 to 24.

I totaled the number of crime guns for young adults (youth category)  
collected for violent crimes in the 27 communities participating.  
Those categories, by crime and age category, are reported in Table E  
for each community.  The violent crimes are the Homicide, Kidnapping, 
Robbery and Assaults/Threats.  The ATF reports that 1526 crime guns 
were seized from young adults totaled from all communities.  That 
number is 2% of all guns (76280) submitted for tracing or 4.7% of 
the number (32653) possessed by persons whose age was reported.

The population of 18 to 24 group for the United States reported by
the Census Bureau on their web site at
	www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/intfile2-1.txt
is 25,470,000 in 1998.  The total population of 18 and older in the
United States reported in the same location is 200,426,000.  The
ATF youth category is 12.7% of the adult population.  The ATF data
shows that the guns used in violent crimes for that age group is 
less than half their fraction of the adult population.  

So, where does the bulge reported by the ATF come from?  The ATF
has a big "other" category for crime guns.  That category, called
"Firearm Offenses" is described by the ATF as: "can include any 
offense or crime in which a firearm was involved."  The word "involved" 
is key.  If the gun is used to threaten or worse, the category of
crime would become a violent one.  "Involve" includes crimes of
burglary where the criminal stole a gun (but did not use it) or
a youth shot a gun on property that he should not have, or that
a traffic stop turned up a gun, and so on.  This category finds
21.5% of the total crime guns from offenses by the young adult group.

That is, the young adult involvement in crimes involving guns are
disproportantly non-violent and do not represent evidence of the 
violent use implied by the ATF.

The ATF is once again attempting to dupe the Congress of the United
States.  Please let your friends in Congress know what is happening.
I will be happy to show the arithmetic performed, but it is easily
checked by anyone with a calculator and the report.

Regards,
Phil