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1 J. Legal Stud. 97 (1972)
The Medium is the Message: Firearm Caliber as a Determinant of Death from Assault

handle is hein.journals/legstud1 and id is 101 raw text is: THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE: FIREARM CALIBER AS A DETERMINANT OF DEATH FROM ASSAULT FRANKLIN E. ZlMRING* Tims is the second report of a research project on violent assault in Chi- cago. The first, a study of fatal and nonfatal assaults with knives and guns, produced evidence to support three conclusions: (1) Most homicide is not the result of a single-minded intention to kill at any cost. (2) Many nonfatal attacks with knives and guns are apparently indistinguishable in motive, intent and dangerousness from many fatal attacks. Indeed, the overlap between fatal and nonfatal assaults with knives and guns is much more impressive than any differences that were noted. (3) Weapon dangerousness, independent of any other factors, has a substantial impact on the death rate from attack.' This paper first reports on an attempt to carry the earlier research one step further by comparing low-caliber with high-caliber firearms attacks, and then suggests some ways in which the data developed in the two studies of * Associate Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Center for Studies in Crim- inal Justice, University of Chicago. Jerald Kessler, now a third-year student at the Uni- versity of Chicago Law School, performed with diligence and creativity as a research assistant on this project. Steven Harris, a second-year student at the Law School, con- ducted a helpful survey of the literature on intent in violent attack. The Chicago Police Department, in particular Mr. Michael Spiotto, provided access to the department files on reported fatal and nonfatal attacks that were used in this study. I Franklin E. Zimring, Is Gun Control Likely To Reduce Violent Killings?, 3S U. Chi. L. Rev. 721-24, 730-37 (1968). A third report, Homicide in Chicago, 1965-70, grows out of the same research project, a study of violent attack in Chicago supported by the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago. Other data on the issue of weapon dangerousness are developed in George D. Newton and Franklin E. Zlmring, Firearms and Violence in American Life (Staff Report (7) to the Nat'l Comm'n on the Causes and Prevention of Violence 1969). See, e.g., id. at 44 and 177-79 (relation- ship between relative degree of gun use and extent to which guns are more lethal than knives), 46-47 (death rates from gun vs. nongun armed robbery), 69-74 (effect of increase in gun ownership and use on death from assault in Detroit), 76-77 (relationship between relative gun use in robbery and assault in major cities).

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