The Relative Frequency of Offensive and Defensive Gun Uses: Results from a National Survey

Author: Hemenway, D. / Azrael, D.
Publication: Violence and Victims
Topics: Criminology Self-defense Gun Use / Deterrence Surveillance/Data Collection, U.S./National.
Keywords: Hidden gun use national survey offensive and defensive gun use.
Bibliographic information +

Using data from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of 1905 adults conducted in 1996, the authors find that criminal gun use is far more common than self-defense gun use. Fourteen civilians reported a total of 54 incidents of self-defense gun use in the previous 5 years while 97 civilians reported 240 incidents of hostile gun displays against them. Overall, the number of respondents reporting that they were gun victims exceeded the number of respondents claiming to have used a gun in self-defense by more than 4 to 1