PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Nearly 40,000 people in the U.S. die from firearm-related deaths each year, and a sizable proportion of these
deaths are homicides (roughly 37%). Non-lethal gun violence occurs even more frequently than lethal gun
violence. In other words, while most research focuses on lethal gun violence, gun violence may be (a) physically
non-injurious (i.e., a gun is brandished but not used); (b) injurious but non-lethal; or (c) lethal. Each of these
outcomes have important public health implications for mental health, physical health, and mortality risk and
prevention. Yet, we currently lack basic information on the nature and extent of most gun violence, particularly
non-lethal gun violence. Following this, this proposal contends that to move knowledge of gun violence
forward, it is essential to consider the individual, situational, and contextual risk factors for both non-lethal
and lethal gun violence within a comprehensive, comparative framework. Put simply, studying gun violence
without considering non-lethal injury might result in a mischaracterization of gun violence as a whole.
Importantly, we also lack fundamental information about the impact and efficacy of many firearm policies on
gun violence. Again, the impact of these various policies on non-lethal gun violence is particularly under-
researched, despite the potential for variation in this impact. It is possible, for example, that some laws may
have impacts on fatal gun violence, but less of an impact on non-fatal gun violence (i.e., by decreasing lethality,
but not frequency). Other laws may have impacts on both fatal and non-fatal gun violence, while still other laws
may have no effect on either form of gun violence. Yet, these patterns have not been systematically examined to
this point. Following this, to address these research gaps, this research will use a combination of several data
sources to compile a large-scale, detailed database which can be used to examine the factors and policies
associated with firearm violence in three phases. First, the research team will compile data on violent crime to
examine a number of measures intended to capture the diverse nature of firearm violence, including: (a) gun
violence not resulting in physical injury; (b) gun violence resulting in non-fatal injury; and (c) gun violence
resulting in death. Second, we will examine variation in these different types of gun violence according to a
number of individual, situational, and contextual factors by using a series of multivariate regression models to
examine variation in both the likelihood of each form of gun violence, and the rates of each form of gun
violence. Specifically, we will examine differences according to: (1) individual perpetrator and victim
characteristics (e.g., age, sex, race, victim-offender relationship); (2) the situational context of the offense (e.g.,
offense type, drug and alcohol use); and (3) the broader community context in which the offense occurs (e.g.,
population density, community characteristics). Finally, we will examine the overall association between state-
level gun policies and gun-related violence generally, as well as the distinct association between these same
policies and each form of gun violence (i.e., nonlethal and lethal).
