Research on Firearms and Violent Crime

• Author: Thomas A. Petee,Jay Corzine
• Published date: 01 February 2009
• Date: 01 February 2009
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1043986208330936
• Subject Matter: Articles

4

Journal of Contemporary

Criminal Justice

Volume 25 Number 1

February 2009 4-5

© 2009 Sage Publications

10.1177/1043986208330936

http://ccj.sagepub.com

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Research on Firearms and

Violent Crime

When originally conceptualized, this issue of the Journal of Contemporary

Criminal Justice was intended to focus on the rather broad topic of lethal

violence. As former coeditors of the journal Homicide Studies, we were approached

by Chris Eskridge with the idea of putting together an issue of this journal that would

represent the scope of interests within the Homicide Research Working Group, of

which we are both long-time members. However, as we proceeded with the planning

for this issue, it became very clear that the role of firearms in violent encounters in

the United States was very difficult to separate from the larger focus of lethal violence.

To put it simply, firearms have became a common thread in much of the recent

research on homicide, whether the focus is on the proportion of firearm-related

homicides or on issues of gun ownership and self-defense in the deterrence of

violence. As a result, this issue slowly evolved from a focus on the more general

issue of lethal violence to one on firearms and lethal violence.

This issue is composed of five research articles on firearms and violence and three

essays on the 2008 Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, which

struck down a gun control law banning handguns in the District of Columbia. The

research contributions represent a wide variety of topics, data sources, and method-

ological techniques. In the first article, Hart and Miethe use National Crime Victimi-

zation Survey data to examine the circumstances in which firearms are used by crime

victims in self-defense. Their findings demonstrate the significant role that context

plays in when and how effectively guns are used in self-defense situations. In the

second article, Wilkinson looks at the significance of peer influence in youth gun

violence. Using qualitative data from life history interviews of young male offenders

in New York City, her results suggest that offenders who are more deeply embedded

in networks of peers who carry and use weapons are themselves more likely to be

involved in serious gun violence.

Kovandzic and Kleck use General Social Survey data to investigate the relationship

among homicide rate, size of the police force, and an individual’s decision to own a

handgun for larger cities in the United States. Their multilevel models show that

handgun ownership is at least in part a response to the local homicide rate and not

necessarily to the respondent’s fear of crime or prior victimization. Libby and Wright

examine the impact of automatic firearms on the number of victims in violent incidents

occurring in the United States. Using National Incident Based Reporting System data,

their findings indicate that the use of an automatic firearm in a violent encounter

Editorial Comment