STUDY EYES KIDS' ACCESS TO FIREARMS.(MAIN)

Byline: BART JONES Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- One-third of U.S. homes with children have at least one firearm and nearly half of them keep the weapons unsecured, a study found.

Forty-three percent of such homes kept one or more guns in an unlocked place and without trigger locks, and guns were kept loaded as well as unlocked in 9 percent, according to researchers at Rand Corp. and the University of California, Los Angeles.

The findings underscore the need to make adults more aware that firearms are accessible to many children and that they need to keep the weapons out of their hands, said Dr. Mark A. Schuster, a UCLA pediatrician and the …