[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5301]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      VIOLENCE AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Josephson Institute of Ethics, a 
nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, recently released its survey on 
violence and substance abuse in the United States. The survey finds 
that a disturbing number of young people have easy access to guns and 
have brought those guns and other weapons to school in the past year.
  According to those surveyed, 47 percent of all high school students 
and 22 percent of all middle school students reported having easy 
access to guns. Of those students who reported drinking at school in 
the past 12 months, those with easy access to guns jumped to an 
astonishing 71 percent for high school students and 59 percent for 
middle school students.
  Furthermore, 14 percent of high school students and 11 percent of 
middle school students admitted that they brought weapons to school in 
the past 12 months. Again, those numbers increased dramatically among 
students who also reported drinking at school at some point in the last 
year to 48 percent for high school students and 57 percent for middle 
school students.
  Easy access to guns among our young people is dangerous, but access 
to guns paired with access to alcohol or drugs is recipe for disaster. 
And while the vast majority of students will be safe in their 
classrooms, our youth's easy access to firearms makes 36 percent of 
high school students and 39 percent of middle school students feel 
unsafe at school. Unfortunately, unless Congress and acts to curb youth 
access to guns, in some cases, that fear may become a reality for more 
and more students.

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