Firearms and community feelings of safety.

• Author: Hemenway, David
• Position: Guns and Violence Symposium

1. INTRODUCTION

   A recent advertisement from the National Rifle Association argues that women must take responsibility for their self-defense. "One choice is a firearm," the ad reads, "a deeply personal decision that requires deliberation, knowledge and maturity" (emphasis added).

   More than 50% of gun owners cite protection as one reason they own a firearm.(1) Gun owners, particularly those who own their guns for protection, report they feel safer because of their guns. For example, 89% of individuals whose primary reason for gun ownership was self-defense said "yes" when asked "Do you feel safer because you have a gun at home?"(2) The findings are not at all surprising. If their guns made them feel less safe, owners could simply get rid of their guns.

   This Article emphasizes that the decision to own a firearm is more than solely a personal issue or a household issue--it affects others in the community as well. In the jargon of economics, the decision to acquire a gun has externalities. Families who own guns could theoretically increase community safety, e.g., by deterring criminals, a positive externality, or reduce community safety, e.g., by increasing the risk of accidental injury, a negative externality.

   The externalities may be actual, perceived, or both. This Article explores whether increased gun ownership raises or lowers the perceived safety of others in the community by looking at subjective beliefs, an issue that has yet to be examined.

   METHODS

   Data were gathered from a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of adults eighteen years and older. The survey, which included 800 individuals who personally own a gun and 400 non-gun owners, was conducted by Fact Finders, Inc., for the Harvard Injury Control Center, in May and June of 1994. Using techniques developed by Waksberg,(3) telephone numbers were randomly generated to include households both with listed and with unlisted numbers. Once a phone number was selected for inclusion in the sample, as many as ten attempts were made to screen the selected household. Respondents were not identifiable by name or address. The refusal rate was 27.2%.

   To ensure a nationally representative sample, the sample was stratified by the population of each state. The number of interviews designated for each state was determined by that state's population relative to the total population of the fifty states. The state stratification was performed separately for gun owners and for non-gun owners. This methodology enabled us to estimate the percentage of gun owners in each state and region.

   Due to the stratification, gun owners in states with relatively few gun owners, e.g. Massachusetts, are overrepresented in the sample compared to gun owners in states where a high percentage of people own firearms, e.g. Mississippi. Conversely, non-gun owners are over-sampled in Mississippi and undersampled in Massachusetts. This effect may be corrected by weighting the data with estimates of state gun ownership. In analyzing the data, the results are similar whether weighted or unweighted data are used. For simplicity of exposition, only unweighted data will be presented.

   Gun owners comprise almost 30% of the U.S. population.(4) Our survey indicates that approximately 33.7% of adults personally own a gun. By obtaining 800 gun owners and 400 non-owners, the survey oversampled approximately four-to-one for gun owners. To get a national estimate, observations were weighted to correct for this oversampling.

   The first three questions in the survey ask about crime in the respondent's neighborhood and about how safe the respondent feels. The fourth question, which is the first about firearms, asks: "Thinking specifically about guns, if more people in your community were to acquire guns, would that make you feel more safe, less safe, or the same?" The response to this question is the dependent variable in our analysis. One hundred and eleven gun owners and thirty-seven nonowners did not answer the question and are excluded from the analysis.

   Independent variables included gender, race (white or other), community (urban or other), region (South or other), education (completed college or not), family income ($35,000), whether any children under eighteen live...