FBI justifiable homicide data indicates that police officers may be safer in states where law-abiding citizens are empowered to carry concealed handguns in public.
Each year, the FBI publishes violent crime data collected from state law enforcement agencies. This publication includes justifiable homicide (JH) totals for both law enforcement and private citizens. Upon request, state-level JH is also available.
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Comments
Very interesting data. One thing you CAN'T easily tease out of the data is how many of the killings in non-RTC states are wrongly classified. I would argue that in a non-RTC state, there is more of a bias by prosecutors to charge a self-defense case as murder rather than justifiable homicide. I'm inclined to believe there's much less of a countervailing tendency to overuse justifiable homicide in RTC states. Even in a self-defence friendly state they investigate pretty thoroughly.
One suggestion I would make, though, is not to look at the per state rates, but rather the rates per population. If I calculated it right, the rates per 100,000 population work out as follows:
Police JH RTC - .111
Police JH nonRTC - .175
Citizen JH RTC - .104
Citizen JH nonRTC - .049
That makes the different rates a bit less dramatic, but still shows that in nonRTC jurisdictions there are 50% more JH, and well under half as many civilian JH.
Hunter: I get slightly different results, but within a few hundredths of yours. Did you use population figures from Table 4, circa 2007?
One consideration is to calculate police JH using full-time law enforcement data to determine rates for LEOs. I will refer to that in the next article.
However, the reason I chose this formula is because JH is infrequent, so we don't get as reliable samples as we do for criminal homicide.
But as you point out, with your formula, we still see significant rate differences between RTC and non-RTC. Good post!
Howard, your figures are almost certainly more accurate than mine, I was doing quick and dirty calculations. Whatever numbers we use, though, you point out some really interesting numbers here.
Not too surprising, this is an effect you can easily understand the reasons for. If you arm the victims, they are going to with greater frequency render police assistance moot. There are some subsequent benefits that might not necessarily be in the data, too. The "Lott effect" of lowering violent confrontational crime when civilian concealed carry becomes more frequent may well be magnified immensely by just such results.
And, of course, we have no way of measuring from these data the FAR more common situations where the deployment of a gun stops the confrontation without a shot ever being fired. (laugh) I have just enough statistical training to know how far out on a limb I am here, so I'll shut up now.
Just one question concerning the source data. Does it separate incidents of Citizen JH while carrying from Citizen JH during home invasion? Just wondered if you were able to make the distinction for your calculations.
The FBI data only indicates burglary circumstances if the criminal kills somebody during burglary. For civilian JH, there is no indicator listing where the defender shot the attacker.
Howard,
How does this data trend over time? The 40 states have been static for a little over 2 years, and I believe before KS and NB the count was static for 2 years.
The ratios are consistent 2000-2007. RTC states are safer for civilians and LEOs don't have to defend themselves as much.
This is great news provided by our FBI friends.
Remember policemen are not everybody’s personal bodyguards. Their jobs are to find and arrest people who have committed crimes, not to prevent such potential crimes from happening in the first place. Clearly, the responsibility for victim-prevention lies with the victim-to-be.
Policemen & policewomen are my hero's but they don't live with me, and are never with me during my daily travels.
I will carry a concealed weapon in Ohio where I legally can, because it is lighter then carrying a police officer.
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