Peter H. Proctor writes:
2) The main factor was apparently the substitution of handguns for
long guns as home defense weapons. For penetrating trunchal
wounds, the mortality rate for handguns is 15-20 %, roughly the
same as for equivalent knife wounds. For (e.g) shotguns, the
mortality rate is 70% or so. If memory serves, for high power
rifles, about 30-40 %, BTW, the mortality rate from those wicked
“assault weapons” is close to that for handguns, since they shoot
a relatively low-powered round
Please provide a source for these claims.
This is what I was taught in my training as a pathologist and seem
to be pretty standard figures. Also, I saw roughly these figures
presented at a Path convention and see no reason to question them.
But I suppose I could find the reference somewhere.
Please do so. I’ve appended about 20 studies that all contradict this.
I looked in Medline for studies on gun shot and stab wound mortality
and turned up dozens. There was a consistent pattern across
different countries and wound locations — gunshot wounds were far
more lethal. For example a study in The Journal of Trauma (36:4
pp516-524) looked at all injury admissions to a Seattle hospital over
a six year period. The mortality rate for gunshot wounds was 22%
while that for stab wounds was 4%. Even among patients that survived,
gunshot wounds were more serious — the mean cost of treatment for
these patients was more than twice that for stab wounds.
Apples and Oranges. I suspect the difference is ” for equivalent
trunchal wounds” which I carefully specified.. If you include
superficial knife wounds and wounds that do not penetrate the
peritoneum, your figures do sound about right. These are easy to
treat and nobody ever dies from them.
Sorry, as I specifically stated those rates were for wounds serious
enough to warrant hospital admission, not superficial ones. Further,
the other studies mostly looked at equivalent wounds in equivalent
locations. Without exception, gunshot wounds were more serious and
more likely to lead to death. I’ve appended the abstracts of the studies
from Medline.
But wait until you penetrate a viscous or ( especially ) cut a great
vessel. The lesser energy involved in knife wounds is more than
made up for by their larger size.
This does not seem to be the case. See the attached studies.
As for handgun vs long gun wound mortality, I suggest you look at
table 5.10 of “Point Blank” which presents the results of a
multivariate analysis based on NCS and SHR data and shows no
significant difference.
Er, this just does not sound right. Long guns ( particularly
shotguns) are much more destructive than handguns. Compare about
200 ft-lbs for 38 Special to 2000 ft lbs for a high-power military
round.
The kinetic energy of the projectile is obviously not the only thing
that matters.
One possibility—These figures are for people who actually make it
to the hospital alive.
No. They are are based on the the NCS (victim survey) for the number
and type of woundings and the FBI’s supplementary homicide reports for
the number and type of deaths.
(more…)
HerrGlock writes:
Oh hell, now I’m going to have to dig up that study. There’s a study
done that shows long guns are more likely to have an
accidental/negligent shooting than are handguns. Something along the
lines of 4 to 1.
Try 1 to 4. Handguns are four times as likely to be involved in an
accidental shooting as long guns. Handguns comprise about 1/3 of the
US gun stock and are involved in 2/3 of the accidental woundings (NEISS).
Peter H. Proctor writes:
Er, According to Kleck ( Point Blank, table 2, ) 90% or more of
firearms kept loaded at any one time are handguns.
Er, there is no table 2 in “Point Blank”. Nor does Kleck make this
claim anywhere in “Point Blank”. Nor is true. You can estimate the
percentage of firearms kept loaded all the time from a survey of
firearm storage practices (JAMA 92). 80% of those who said that they
kept a gun loaded all or some of the time said they owned a handgun.
From this we can conclude that AT MOST 80% of the guns kept loaded are
handguns. It would only be 80% if every person who owns a handgun
NEVER keeps a long gun loaded.
Presumably, you cannot
get shot by an unloaded gun, so handgun “exposure’ ( in the sense we
toxicologists use it) is very high relative to long guns, even though there
are more long guns.
You CAN get shot with an “unloaded” gun. In fact guns that are, in
fact, loaded but are believed to be unloaded are particularly likely
to be involved in accidents. Surveys measure whether people
believe the gun to be unloaded, not whether it really is unloaded.
Your measure of “exposure” is wrong. If hunting rifles were never
stored loaded, do you think that this would magically stop all hunting
accidents from occurring?
The far greater handgun involvement in accidents may indeed be
partly caused by the greater likelihood for a handgun being kept
loaded. This still doesn’t change the fact that a handgun is four
times as likely to be involved in a gun accident.
Yet handguns are involved in less than 14% of accidental gun
fatalities.
ABSOLUTELY FALSE. You really should not rely on Kates for this
stuff. He has deliberately misled you. Handguns are involved in
about half of accidental gun fatalities.
A very interesting review of all of this is: Kates et al Guns and Public
Health. Tennessee Law Review, vol 62, #3, p513 (1995).
A fiercely partisan pro-gun piece that manages to misstate or get
wrong just about every relevant fact on this issue. See
here for the
discussion I had with Kates on this.
If you just want to look at accidental
death, I would note that most of the decrease in fatal gun accidents
in the US occured before there was an increase in handgun ownership
Table 2.1 of Kleck’s “Point Blank” shows that handgun sales jumped
dramatically around 1965 — from around 0.5M per year to 1-2M per year
afterwards. This is presumably the reason for the increase in the
percentage of households owning handguns from 16% in the early sixties
to 25% in the late eighties. (Table 2.2 of Kleck)
Table 7.1 of Kleck shows that the fatal gun accident rate declined
from 2.4 per 100k population in 1933 to 1.21 in 1965 and then to 0.57
in 1987. That is a decrease of 1.19 before handgun ownership
increased, and a decrease 0.64 afterwards. The rate of decrease was
slower after 1965 than before.
Chris BeHanna wrote:
From 1967 to 1987, the U.S. accidental gun death rate
declined by more than two thirds while the handgun stock simultaneously
increased by 273%. (Kates et al, “Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of
Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?” Tenn. L. Rev., Spring, 1995 –
I’d give you a page number but the article is at home).
Page 567: “Over the twenty year period 1967-1986, the number of
handguns increased 173%, while the fatal gun accident rate decreased
by almost two-thirds.” Dear me, you seem to have embellished Kates’
factoid by changing “almost two-thirds” to “more than two-thirds” and
173% to 273%. That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Chris.
Mr Kates has also done some embellishing of his own, though with a bit
more subtlety than Chris has. Firstly he has chosen to use 1967-1986 as
his twenty year period. 1967 just so happened to be a year with an
unusually large number of fatal accidents. Kleck’s tables actually go
to 1987, and if he had used 1968-1987 he would only have been able to
claim a decrease of one half instead of two thirds. Secondly, notice
that he has compared the change in the gun accident rate (number of
gun accidents divided by the size of the population) with the change
in the absolute number of handguns (not divided by the size of the
population). Once again this skews the comparison in the direction
Kates prefers. A less misleading version would be: “Over the twenty
year period 1968-1987, the number of handguns per person increased by
90%, while the fatal gun accident rate decreased by one half.”
Even this one has problems: most of the new handguns went to households
that already had handguns — the percentage of households with handguns
did not increase that much. A better version might be: “”Over the twenty
year period 1968-1987, the fraction of households with handguns
increased by 5 percentage points, while the fatal gun accident rate
decreased by one half.”
This still shows that an increase in handgun ownership was associated
with a decrease in gun accidents, but obviously this wasn’t dramatic
for Kates.