Firearm Injury from Crime: Firearms, Crime, and Criminal Justice

• NCJ Number: 160093
• Author(s): Marianne W. Zawitz, Bureau of Justice Statistics
• Date Published: April 1996
• Publication Type: Publication

Annotation

Reports available statistical information on fatal and nonfatal firearm injury that results from crime from a number of sources.

Abstract

This document reports available statistical information on fatal and nonfatal firearm injury that results from crime from a number of sources.

Data presented in the report are from several sources including the BJS National Crime Victimization Survey, the FBI's Supplemental Homicide Reports, and the Firearms Injury Surveillance Study sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Included are descriptions of the characteristics of the victims and the circumstances surrounding the crime. Data about the number of law enforcement officers injured by firearms, offender involvement in firearm injury, and the costs of firearm injury are also included.

Highlights

• Of the victims of nonfatal violent crime who faced an assailant armed with a firearm, 3% suffered gunshot wounds.
• An estimated 57,500 nonfatal gunshot wounds from assaults were treated in hospital emergency departments from June 1992 through May 1993. Over half of these victims were black males; a quarter were black males age 15-24.
• The firearm injury rate for police officers declined in the early 1980s and began climbing again after 1987, but has not exceeded the peak reached in 1980-81.