Shootings Blamed on ‘Vicious Cycle’ of Guns : Gangs obtain weapons to carry out crime and fearful residents buy them to protect themselves. The availability usually harms the innocent, police say.

The shooting of a 4-year-old boy by his brother illustrates the alarming availability of handguns in Orange County, law enforcement officials said Friday.

“It’s mind-boggling how many guns there are,” said Colleene Hodges, supervisor of the county probation office’s gang unit. “Where are all these guns coming from? Who’s minding the store?”

The gun involved in Thursday’s shooting belonged to the boys’ teen-age brother and had been stolen in a residential robbery, police said.

Each year, scores of youths are shot by other youths in Orange County, intentionally and accidentally. Authorities blame the carnage on the proliferation of handguns as gang members arm themselves to commit crimes and residents arm themselves to protect their families.

“It’s a vicious circle,” Hodges said. “Hispanic gangs want guns for drive-by shootings, Asian gangs want guns for residential robberies, drug dealers want guns to protect their drugs and money, and Joe Citizen wants guns to protect himself,” she said.

Many of the guns are bought illegally, on the “black market,” said Andrew Vita, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles’ office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

“We know a lot of (juveniles) . . . in Orange County come up to Los Angeles to buy their guns on the black market,” Vita said.

Another large portion of the weapons are stolen during residential burglaries and robberies, he said. Others are obtained through “straw purchases,” in which someone who has no criminal record is paid to buy a gun for someone with a criminal past.

Hundreds of illicit handguns and other weapons are confiscated by local law enforcement authorities in the county yearly. In 1990, about 400 juveniles were arrested on suspicion of having weapons.

Arnold Binder, a criminology professor at UC Irvine who specializes in juvenile delinquency, said Friday that gang members have more guns because not only do they steal them, but they have drug profits with which to buy them.

“The availability of weapons has increased with the youngsters’ resources to get them,” he said. “In the 1920s and ‘30s, the crimes (juveniles) committed were quite petty compared to today. . . . They couldn’t go and buy guns like they do now.”

Adding to the problem, he said, are the cultural characteristics among gang members that equate guns to manhood.

The accidental shootings by children, authorities said, often result from loaded firearms left within reach by people on both sides of the law.

“Orange County seems to have more than its share of (accidental) shootings,” said Luis Tolley, a spokesman of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence. Nationwide, he said, there is one accidental juvenile shooting death each day. For each child killed, he added, five to 10 others are seriously injured.

Thursday’s shooting was the second accidental shooting in the county in less than two weeks.

The other incident involved two 13-year-olds who were playing with a father’s newly acquired revolver. The victim in that shooting, Antonio Lara of Santa Ana, died.