Firearms and Violence - An Analysis of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports' Crime in the United States, 1982

• NCJ Number: 93897
• Author(s): P H Blackman
• Date Published: Unknown
• Length: 48 pages
• Corporate Author: National Rifle Assoc
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Although between 1974 and 1982, per capita handgun ownership increased 25 percent and long-gun ownership rose 15 percent, overall reported firearm involvement in violent crime has fallen from 34 percent to 29 percent, thus undermining some of the assumptions of gun control advocates.

Abstract

Much of the debate on the issue of gun control is based on the assumption that as the number of guns increases, their use in crime will increase and further, that guns represent a major ingredient in violent crime. Data do not support either assumption. There are a number of ways of measuring the use of guns in crime, but by whatever measure, the involvement of guns in crime is decreasing, and firearms are not involved in over two-thirds of all violent crimes. Justice Department research estimates that 25-30 percent of 'crime guns' are long guns, and handguns are involved in about 22 percent of the violent crimes reported to police. Victimization surveys, which include unreported violent crime, lower handgun involvement below the 10 percent mark. Handgun involvement in murder and crime-related injury (based on victimization surveys) falls below 2 percent of all violent crime. According to the 1978 Decision Making Information survey, the three most feared crimes were robbery/mugging, murder in the course of robbery or other crime, and burglary. Since handguns are involved in 4 percent of these most feared crimes, gun control legislation would be aimed at this small percentage of predatory crime that would be aimed at this small percentage of predatory crime that would be least affected by restrictive gun laws, since persons using guns in such crimes would circumvent gun control laws. Other issues of crime control and gun control discussed are the effectiveness of police, prosecutors, and courts; mandatory sentencing; felonious assaults and killings of police officers; arrests for weapons violations; stolen firearms; the safety of the shooting sports; and gun-related injuries and deaths. Data include a comparison of homicide rates in jurisdictions with and without restrictive gun legislation.