May 2013 DOJ Firearm Crime Reports Shows Continued Drop

[dc dalton]

Department of justice released their annual firearms crime report in May, and lo and behold firearm crime dropped again in 2013. From the report:

In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm (table 1). Homicides made up about 2% of all firearm-related
crimes. There were 11,101 firearm homicides in 2011, down by 39% from a high of 18,253 in 1993 (figure 1). The majority of the decline in firearm-related homicides occurred between 1993 and 1998. Since 1999, the number of firearm homicides increased from 10,828 to 12,791 in 2006 before declining to 11,101 in 2011.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

 

[Coop45]

About 61% of nonfatal firearm violence was reported to the police in 2007-11.


They even know about offenses not reported to the police. Amazing! I wonder if they know who swiped my k-bar in 1968.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

"In 2007-11, about 61% of nonfatal firearm violence was reported to the police, compared to 46% of nonfirearm violence (table 10). Among the nonfatal firearm victimizations that went unreported in 2007-11, the most common reasons victims gave for not reporting the crime was fear of reprisal (31%) and that the police could not or would not do anything to help (27%)."
The report's note on Table 10 "Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2007-2011."

The NCVS is a survey that asks a sample of people if they have been crime victims and projects total numbers of crimes reported by the sample to the total population to get an estimate that is higher than the number of police reports totaled by the FBI Uniform Crime Report. Non reportage of crime by victims is high according to the NCVS: 39% of gun crime and 54% of non-gun crime. If the New York City Village Voice newspaper series is correct, there is also under-reportage by NYPD of crimes reported by NYC residents to the NYPD.

The BJS also relies on the NCVS for its self-defense statistics, in particular their defensive gun use DGU stat (58,000 to 108,000 DGU per year). There are also problems with the NCVS method versus surveys like the National Self-Defense Survey NSDS (2.4 million DGU per year) or National Survey on Private Ownership and use of Firearms NSPOF (4.7 million DGU per year) which asked all the survey sample: "Within the past 12 months, have you yourself used a gun, even if it was not fired, to protect yourself or someone else, or for the protection of property at home, work, or elsewhere?"

"The key explanation for the difference between the 108,000 NCVS estimate for the annual number of DGUs and the several million from the surveys discussed earlier is that NCVS avoids the false-positive problem by limiting DGU questions to persons who first reported that they were crime victims. Most NCVS respondents never have a chance to answer the DGU question, falsely or otherwise."

In view of the calls for restrictions on legal gun stransactions the BJS survey of prisone inmates is interesting:

TABLE 14
Source of firearms possessed by state prison inmates at
time of offense, 1997 and 2004
Percent of state prison inmates
Source of firearm         1997 2004
Total                     100% 100%
Purchased or traded from: 14.0% 11.3%
  Retail store             8.2   7.3
  Pawnshop                 4.0   2.6
  Flea market              1.0   0.6
  Gun show                 0.8   0.8
Family or friend          40.1% 37.4%
  Purchased or traded     12.6  12.2
  Rented or borrowed      18.9  14.1
  Other                    8.5  11.1
Street/illegal source     37.3% 40.0%
  Theft or burglary        9.1   7.5
  Drug dealer/off street  20.3  25.2
  Fence/black market       8.0   7.4
Other                      8.7% 11.2%
Note: Includes only inmates with a current conviction. 
Estimates may differ from previously published BJS reports. 
To account for differences in the 1997 and 2004 inmate 
survey questionnaires, the analytical methodology used 
in 1997 was revised to ensure comparability with the 2004 survey.
Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Survey of Inmates in 
State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 1997 and 2004.

I would like to point out that the family and friends of inmates who supplied guns were often criminals themselves, if the NIJ "Armed and Dangerous" survey is a guide.