School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
JAMA Netw Open. 2018 Jul 6;1(3):e180833. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.0833.
A foundational issue in firearms policy has been whether the type of weapon used in an assault affects the likelihood of death.
To determine whether the likelihood of death from gunshot wounds inflicted in criminal assaults is associated with the power of the assailant's firearm as indicated by its caliber.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Cross-sectional study with multivariate analysis of data on shooting cases extracted by the authors from police investigation files for assaults that took place in Boston, Massachusetts, between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2014. These data were analyzed between October 1, 2017, and February 18, 2018. In all cases the victim sustained 1 or more gunshot wounds in circumstances that the Boston Police Department deemed criminal. The working sample included all 221 gun homicides and a stratified random sample of 300 nonfatal cases drawn from the 1012 that occurred during the 5-year period. Seven nonfatal cases were omitted because they had been misclassified.
The primary source of variation was the caliber of the firearm used to shoot the victim.
Whether the victim died from the gunshot wound(s).
The final sample of 511 gunshot victims and survivors (n = 220 fatal; n = 291 nonfatal) was predominantly male (n = 470 [92.2%]), black (n = 413 [80.8%]) or Hispanic (n = 69 [13.5%]), and young (mean [SD] age, 26.8 [9.4] years). Police investigations determined firearm caliber in 184 nonfatal cases (63.2%) and 183 fatal cases (83.2%). These 367 cases were divided into 3 groups by caliber: small (.22, .25, and .32), medium (.38, .380, and 9 mm), or large (.357 magnum, .40, .44 magnum, .45, 10 mm, and 7.62 × 39 mm). Firearm caliber had no systematic association with the number of wounds, the location of wounds, circumstances of the assault, or victim characteristics, as demonstrated by χ2 tests of each cluster of variables and by a comprehensive multinomial logit analysis. A logit analysis of the likelihood of death found that compared with small-caliber cases, medium caliber had an odds ratio of 2.25 (95% CI, 1.37-3.70; P = .001) and large caliber had an odds ratio of 4.54 (95% CI, 2.37-8.70; P < .001). Based on a simulation using the logit equation, replacing the medium- and large-caliber guns with small-caliber guns would have reduced gun homicides by 39.5%.
Firearms caliber was associated with the likelihood of death from gunshot wounds in criminal assault. Shootings with larger-caliber handguns were more deadly but no more sustained or accurate than shootings with smaller-caliber handguns. This conclusion is of direct relevance to the design of gun policy.
枪支政策中的一个基本问题是，在攻击中使用的武器类型是否会影响死亡的可能性。
确定在马萨诸塞州波士顿发生的犯罪袭击中，枪击受害者的死亡可能性是否与攻击者枪支的威力（由口径表示）有关。
设计、地点和参与者：这是一项横截面研究，作者通过多元分析从警方调查档案中提取的数据，对 2010 年 1 月 1 日至 2014 年 12 月 31 日期间在波士顿发生的枪击案件进行了分析。这些数据是在 2017 年 10 月 1 日至 2018 年 2 月 18 日之间进行分析的。在所有情况下，受害者在波士顿警察局认为是犯罪的情况下都遭受了 1 次或多次枪击。工作样本包括所有 221 例枪伤死亡和从 5 年期间发生的 1012 例非致命案件中抽取的 300 例非致命案件的分层随机样本。由于分类错误，有 7 例非致命病例被排除在外。
主要的变化来源是用于射击受害者的枪支口径。
受害者是否死于枪伤。
最终的 511 名枪击受害者和幸存者样本（n=220 例死亡；n=291 例非致命）主要是男性（n=470 [92.2%]）、黑人（n=413 [80.8%]）或西班牙裔（n=69 [13.5%]），且年轻（平均[标准差]年龄为 26.8[9.4]岁）。警方调查确定了 184 例非致命案件（63.2%）和 183 例致命案件（83.2%）的枪支口径。这 367 例病例按口径分为 3 组：小口径（.22、.25 和.32）、中口径（.38、.380 和 9 毫米）或大口径（.357 马格南、.40、.44 马格南、.45、10 毫米和 7.62×39 毫米）。通过对每一组变量的卡方检验和综合多项逻辑回归分析，表明口径与伤口数量、伤口位置、攻击情况或受害者特征之间没有系统关联。对死亡可能性的逻辑回归分析发现，与小口径病例相比，中口径的优势比为 2.25（95%CI，1.37-3.70；P=0.001），大口径的优势比为 4.54（95%CI，2.37-8.70；P<0.001）。基于使用逻辑方程的模拟，如果用小口径枪支替换中口径和大口径枪支，枪伤死亡人数将减少 39.5%。
枪支口径与犯罪袭击中枪击受害者的死亡可能性有关。使用大口径手枪的枪击更致命，但并不比小口径手枪更持续或更准确。这一结论与枪支政策的设计直接相关。
