We are going to leave race out of this post and save that for the future. Spoiler alert, race does matter when talking about gun violence.
I have distilled some analysis of gun violence from the following Bureau of Statistics report, http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf. This is an incredibly informative paper. I highly recommend a read.
Key Terminology
Before we begin, we should define “violent crime”. The NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) records incidents of homicide, rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, personal larceny, burglary, motor vehicle theft and other theft. I find the terminology confusing as only 25.1% of the victims of violent crimes are injured. I could not find a clear definition of what constitutes a “violent crime” incident in the paper. For example, does a home burglary with the victim absent count as a “violent crime”? Not clear in the paper, but lets continue with our discussion.
See footnotes to Table 9 and section titled Methodology on page 14.
Here are some interesting statistics.
- Guns played a part in only 7.5% of violent crimes (from 2007–2011). See Table 9.
- Guns accounted for 69% of homicides during that same period. See Table 2.
- Less than 1% of the surviving victims of gun violence reported to have defended themselves with a gun during the incident. See Table 11.
- 33% of gun violence is from someone the victim knew. See Table 6.
- 19.3% of gun violence take place at a victims home or lodging. See Table 7.
- In 2004, a survey of state and federal prison inmates showed that only 11.3% purchased their guns legally.
Interpreting the data
Guns add exponential lethality to violent crimes.
Victims of a gun violence crime are 27.5X more likely to end in homicide than crimes committed with a gun. 52,910 people died in the US from gun related homicide from 2007–2011. More than 10,000 annually.
Be nice to your gun-wielding friends and family
Surveys put the rate of gun ownership of US households at around 34%. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/
The US has the highest rate of guns per capita in the world. We are the only country where guns outnumber citizens. 1.1 guns per person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
The rate of gun violence from a non-stranger is not overly surprising. Gun ownership is pervasive, and conflicts will naturally arise from people who are interacting on a regular basis. A fight or argument can quickly spill over to an incident involving a firearm.
Gun battles are not common
Despite the high ownership rates of guns, violent crime victims rarely defend themselves with a firearm. Victims of violent crimes are 27X more likely to threaten or attack the attackers without any weapon, than with a gun. See Table 11.
What about property crimes? In the case of property crime where the victim is present, the property crime victim only used a firearm to protect themselves .9% of the time. They were 5X more likely to attack the burglar without a weapon in these incidents, and 13X more likely to offer no resistance.
Guns may not be used often during a crime incident, but “do they deter crime?”
The argument that guns are used for defense against crime during the incident is not supported by the data. However, reading this data is complicated. The high level of gun ownership may serve to deter crime, which would not be reflected in this data. A further study into the rate of violent and property crimes against other similar nations with measurably lower gun ownership rates should be analyzed to better understand how the US fairs in violent and property crime per capita. This report shows a total of 29,618,300 violent crimes between 2007–2013. Assuming a population of 300 million Americans, this means that 1.9% of the population (less if you consider some may be victimized multiple times) are victims of violent crimes annually.
Criminals don’t own their guns legally
Folks, we are losing track of our guns. When you have 34% of households with guns, and 1.1 guns per person, that is a lot to keep track of. It also means that for every household that does not have a gun, there are an average of 3 guns in the houses that do have guns.
From the survey of state and federal prison inmates conducted in 2004, it showed that only 11.3% of these criminals legally owned the gun they used to commit their crimes. 37.4% got their guns from family or friends, and 40% got their guns from the street or an illegal source. See Table 14.
This means that many guns that are being purchased legally are ending up in the hands of criminals. Many are being borrowed, but a large percentage are coming from the black market or stolen. The high rate of gun ownership is allowing for easy access to guns for these criminals to commit their crimes.
Fixing a broken system
Ideas to better track our guns
We can track an iPhone, but we don’t know where our glocks are. Here are some thoughts on this matter. I will be the first to admit that I am no expert in the current state of legislation and gun ownership registration and tracking. Forgive me if I am suggesting ideas that are already in place or impractical.
- Better ownership data. We need to have a better database to see which guns belong to whom. This should be a national database where law enforcement can easily discover the legal owner of a gun.
- Penalty for not reporting lost or stolen guns. If a gun is lost or stolen, the gun owner should have an easy way to report this incident. If the owner does not report the incident, they should be subject to a stiff fine, and potentially restricted from purchasing additional guns or ammo.
- Penalty for possessing a gun without a license. I do believe this is in place currently. Continued analysis of the enforcement and effectiveness of the current penalties should be studied to see if they are ways to further deter criminals from carrying unlicensed weapons.
- Lend guns to criminals and bear the responsibility. We would be better served if the concept of lending out a gun went away. You wouldn’t loan out your mobile phone to a friend, and gun owners should have a similar ownership attachment to their firearms. If a crime is committed with someone else’s gun, the gun owner should be subject to a fine, a restriction on purchasing additional guns and ammo, and the possibility of conviction as an accessory to the crime.
- Break the black market economics. The penalty for selling a gun illegally needs to have stronger deterrents. The current penalties have not curbed a vibrant black market for illegally sold guns.
- Track my gun. We allow Google, Apple and Facebook to track our every movement, search, and message. Why not allow law-abiding citizens track their guns? If the gun owner could face severe penalties for criminal activity conducted with their guns, they should have the ability to track and find their firearms.
Guns are a part of the American culture. This will not change. The discussion today is geared towards better gun laws, and that is absolutely a discussion we should have. Common sense legislation can provide a framework for ensuring that guns are being purchased by responsible gun owners. Once these owners have purchased their guns, we need to make sure the owners stay in possession of their weapons. With IoT technology and a better tracking database, we have an opportunity to do this effectively and accurately. This will not solve all the problems of gun violence, but it would be a step in the right direction.
Want to know if there is a correlation between gun ownership and firearm-related deaths? You can check out the below post.
