NCJ Number
160193
Date Published
1992
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Handguns are responsible for much of the gun-related violence in the United States. By banning handguns, the Nation would see a significant decrease in the rate of gun-related homicides, suicides, and accidents.
Abstract
In 1980 some 11,522 individuals were murdered with handguns, half of all homicides that year; over 300,000 robberies, rapes, and assaults were committed with handguns, and in 1979 nearly 12,000 people were killed in accidents and suicides that involved handguns. Handguns have been called a "public health problem" in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Calling for "nothing short of a total ban" on the sale of handguns, the Surgeon General's Select Panel for the Promotion of Child Health traced the recent epidemic of deaths and injuries among children and youth to the handgun. The handgun murder rate in the United States per 100,000 population is 100 times as high as the rate in England and Wales, where access to handguns is severely restricted. It is 200 times as high as the rate in Japan, where it is almost impossible for a private citizen to secure a handgun. The banning of the handgun would not significantly limit the ability of individuals and families to protect themselves, since the handgun is rarely, if ever, an effective instrument for protecting the home against intruders; burglars usually enter a home when it is unoccupied, and predators with various criminal intentions usually wait to strike until the potential victim is off-guard. In those few cases in which firearms might be useful, long guns, particularly shotguns, offer much stronger stopping power than handguns. A handgun kept at home for protection is more likely to kill a friend, a neighbor, or a child than a criminal. For every intruder killed by a handgun, six homeowners or their children are killed by accident.