From: Dean Payne Subject: RESEARCH: Police murdered by Handguns To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com Date: Tue, 31 May 94 13:35:37 PDT Here is a relevant report from last month, from a "hostile" source. It tends to rain on the anti- "semiautomatic handgun" parade. Dean ---- "Homicide, Handguns, and the Crime Gun Hypothesis: Firearms Used in Fatal Shootings of Law enforcement Officers, 1980 to 1989." Garen J. Wintemute, MD, MPH. American Journal of Public Health. 1994; 84:561-564. April 1994, Vol. 84, No. 4. ====== From the text ====== There were 735 firearm homicides of law enforcement officers from 1980 to 1989. 435 were committed with the 428 civilian (criminal) handguns. Of those, 296 (69%) were revolvers, 104 (24%) were pistols, and 28 (7%) were of unknown type. Most handguns (53%) were of medium caliber (.38 or 9mm). Small-caliber (.22 to .32) handguns accounted for 20% of all weapons. Of 288 handguns for which information was available, 134 (47%) had a barrel length of 3 inches or less. Such weapons accounted for 78% of all .22- to .32-caliber handguns and 54% of all .38-caliber or 9-mm handguns. Firearms manufacturers based in the U.S. accounted for 82% of the 322 handguns for which a manufacturer was identified. Four firms accounted for 59% of the weapons. Revolvers were at greatest risk (relative risk = 1.40; 95% confidence interval 1.10,1.77). Nearly half (49%) of all pistols were .38 or 9-mm caliber. Among revolvers, risk was highest among .38-caliber weapons. This group accounted for 57% of all revolvers of known caliber and 42% of all handguns for which both gun type and caliber were known. 21% of officers killed with a handgun were shot with their own service weapon, and others were killed with a handgun taken from a fellow officer. TABLE 1 - Relative Risk for the Involvement of Handguns in Homicide of Law Enforcement Officers, Be Estimation of the Proportion of Handguns Lost from Circulation Each Year: United States, 1980 to 1989. [I list only the 10%/year loss rate column. The table also has 5% and 20% columns, but ranking is identical and most numbers change little.] Gun Type/Caliber Relative Risk 95% Confidence Interval Revolver .22 1 .32 3.61 1.72, 7.58 .38 9.02 5.21, 15.3 .357 4.36 2.49, 7.62 >.40 4.31 2.25, 8.26 Pistol .22 1 .25 2.05 0.96, 4.38 .32 15.30 5.56, 41.9 .38/9mm 7.28 3.65, 14.5 >.40 4.45 1.51, 7.85 ====== ABSTRACT ====== Objectives. Many policies seeking to limit handgun violence rest on the largely untested "crime gun hypothesis," which holds that subclasses of handguns differ in their risk for use in violent crime. This study tests that hypothesis for handguns used in homicides of law enforcement officers and describes the population of homicide-involved handguns. Methods. A cross-sectional study was done of civilian (criminal) handguns used in homicides of law enforcement officers from 1980 to 1989. Life tables were generated for each years cohort of new handguns to estimate gun-years at risk, analogous to person-years, for rate and relative risk calculations. Results. Four hundred thirtyfive deaths involved 428 civilian handguns. Revolvers were at greater risk than pistols. For both, risk was lowest for .22-caliber handguns. Risk was greatest for .32-caliber pistols and .38-caliber revolvers. Forty six percent of handguns had a barrel length of 3 in or less. Conclusions. Subclasses of handguns differ substantially in their risk for use in fatal shootings of law enforcement officers. Such epidemiological data may be useful in formulating efforts to prevent these and similar instances of firearm violence. (Am J Public Health. 1994; 84:561-564) ====== From firearms-alert-owner Tue May 31 13:40:47 1994 Received: from localhost (chan@localhost) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.5) id NAA00123 for firearms-alert-outgoing; Tue, 31 May 1994 13:39:15 -0700 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA00113 for ; Tue, 31 May 1994 13:39:13 -0700 Received: from hp.com (hp.com [15.255.152.4]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.7/8.6.5) with SMTP id NAA01807 for ; Tue, 31 May 1994 13:39:12 -0700 Received: from labdep.lsid.hp.com by hp.com with SMTP (1.36.108.7/15.5+IOS 3.13) id AA28610; Tue, 31 May 1994 13:37:51 -0700 Received: by labdep.lsid.hp.com (1.37.109.8/15.5+IOS 3.22) id AA07927; Tue, 31 May 1994 13:37:50 -0700 From: Dean Payne Message-Id: <9405312037.AA07927@labdep.lsid.hp.com> Subject: RESEARCH: Officers Killed To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com Date: Tue, 31 May 94 13:37:50 PDT Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Sender: firearms-alert-owner@shell.portal.com Precedence: bulk Status: RO This table, from Chapter 3 of Kleck's "point Blank ...", was previously posted to t.p.g. Phil Donahue's talkshow on Memorial Day ("Why won't these sheriffs enforce the Brady Law?!") indicated that in 1991, 68 officers were murdered, 50 by handgun.