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14 Crime & Just. 1 (1991)
The Technology of Personal Violence

handle is hein.journals/cjrr14 and id is 9 raw text is: Philip J. Cook The Technology of Personal Violence ABSTRACT Over 30,000 deaths each year result from gunshot wounds. Two decades of systematic research on weapons and personal violence indicate a pervasive influence of weapon type on the patterns and outcomes of violent encounters. The likelihood that an assault will result in death depends (among other things) on the lethality of the weapon. The evidence that weapon lethality affects the likelihood of death in suicide is somewhat weaker. Assailants' weapon choice depends on a number of factors, including the relative vulnerability of the intended victim and the general availability of firearms. National Crime Survey data indicate that guns are used only about 80,000 times each year in self-defense. The core issues for researchers concerned with the technology of per- sonal violence were identified two decades ago in Firearms and Violence in American Life (Newton and Zimring 1969), a report of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. The first issue is to establish the causal importance of weapon type in influencing the volume, patterns, and lethality of personal violence. The second is to measure the effects of gun availability on the propensity to use guns in crime and suicide, where availability refers both to the prevalence of gun ownership and to the legal regulations governing transfer and use. The third core issue is to analyze how the threat of criminal victimiza- Philip J. Cook is professor of public policy and economics, Duke University. Michael Rand of the Bureau of Justice Statistics provided unpublished data. Arthur Kellermann, Gary Kleck, Jacqueline Cohen, Albert J. Reiss, Jr., and Jeffrey Roth offered extensive and very useful comments on an earlier draft. Duke University's Fuqua School of Busi- ness provided an office and secretarial support. 0 1991 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0192-3234/91/0014-000301.00

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