Title: Reality Check: Using Newspapers, Police Reports, and Court Records to Assess Defensive Gun Use

Publication Date: April 2004

What does it say?

Researchers studied newspaper, police, and court reports of gun use over a 14-week period in the Phoenix metropolitan area to determine if the results conformed to high or low estimates of annual self-defensive gun use. The researchers found that the results conformed much more to the lower estimate than to the high estimate often quoted by gun rights enthusiasts.

During the study period, newspapers reported 62 gun incidents including 43 people killed with a gun, 29 who were wounded, and 9 who fired a gun.

Two of the cases involved the defensive use of the gun. (Although the 2 cases of defensive use were not clear-cut, involving either mutual combat or firing a gun in a socially irresponsible manner.) The study did not count defensive uses that would not be reported in the paper, such as someone drawing a gun to frighten someone.

The rest of the cases involved a range of destructive uses of guns: suicide, domestic violence, accidents, road rage, arguments or fights, gang activity, robbery, shooting at police, or motive unknown. Some cases involved use of the gun as part of an occupation.

Gary Kleck’s estimate of 2.5 million defensive gun uses would’ve predicted 98 defensive killings or woundings and 236 firings over the same period, a number far higher than found in this study.

How can I use it?

This study reinforces other studies finding that the defensive use of guns appears to be far outnumbered by the destructive uses of guns and that Kleck’s estimate of 2.5 million self-defensive gun uses is a vast overestimate. The study offers detailed accounts of claims of self-defensive gun uses that were later determined to be murder, aggravated assault, or disorderly conduct.

Citation

Denton, JF, and WV Fabricius, “Reality Check: Using Newspapers, Police Reports, and Court Records to Assess Defensive Gun Use,” Injury Prevention 10 2004:96-98

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