TO: Students in CJ 160

FROM: R. B. Taylor

DATE: 4/17/00

RE: Cross-checking the DGU implications

This handout accompanies the lecture presentation on 4/18. The purpose is as follows: the DGU reports imply a certain amount of people who are wounded and/or wounded and eventually die from the wounds inflicted by the DGUser (See GIA 68-71). We want to check those numbers against information from external sources, more specifically, mortality data and injury data. These will help us understand if the DGU number makes sense.

Using the 8% or 9% of DGUsers who say they shoot and hit the perpetrator (GIA, p. 66, table 6.6), and multiplying that out, gives us 120,000 to 130,000 attackers who are wounded per year.

We can count the number of people who die from firearm related injuries through mortality statistics. See: National Vital Statistics Report Volume 47, No. 19, 6/30/99 (retrieved through PROQUEST DIRECT). For 1997 we get 32,000.

We can then look at those who are treated in emergency rooms of hospitals for firearm-related wounds. These include assaults, accidents, and suicide attempts. See: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report November 19, 1999, Volume 48, No. 45, published by the Centers for Disease Control. The numbers are anywhere from 104,000 down to 64,000 and have been doing down from 93 to 97. The year of the Cook survey was 1994. The number was 90,000. The NUMBER of injuries for African-Americans is about two times the number for Non-Hispanic, Whites, even though African-Americans make up only 13-14% of the population.

125,000

Total people killed or wounded by DGUser - 1994

- 90,000

Total non-fatal firearm-related injuries

- 32,000

Deaths due to firearm-related injuries (total, 1997)

= 3,000

N firearm-related deaths and injuries NOT resulting from DGUs

So our problem is that the survey estimates suggest that almost everyone in the entire US who is injured or who dies from firearms got injured by a DGUser.

Granted there are problems with keeping track of firearm-related injuries (Annest, J.L. et al. (1998). "Use of national data systems for firearm-related injury surveillance." American Journal of Preventive Medicine 15 17-30). But even if the injury data undercount by half, we would still be suggesting something like: half of all people killed or wounded by a firearm received this from a DGUser.

Does this make sense?