GUNS . . . A MILLION YEARS OF DEATH

The U.S. rate of premature death from gunshot wounds is rising faster than that of any leading killer except AIDS, a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Firearms are now wasting a million years of potential life -- measured in working years -- in America every 12 months. (Statisticians reached that figure by subtracting a person's age at death from age 65, the benchmark for retirement.) By that reckoning, the amount of years lost to guns rose 13.6 percent from 1980 to 1991. Three-fourths of that increase stemmed from murders, most in the late1980s as more teens and young adults died in gunfire.