Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 19881997
Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD,
Deborah Azrael, MS, PhD and
David Hemenway, PhD
Matthew Miller, Deborah Azrael, and David Hemenway are all from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 (e-mail: mmiller{at}hsph.harvard.edu).
Objectives. In this study we explored the association betweenrates of household firearm ownership and homicide across theUnited States, by age groups.
Methods. We used cross-sectional time-series data (19881997)to estimate the association between rates of household firearmownership and homicide.
Results. In region- and state-level analyses, a robust associationbetween rates of household firearm ownership and homicide wasfound. Regionally, the association exists for victims aged 5to 14 years and those 35 years and older. At the state level,the association exists for every age group over age 5, evenafter controlling for poverty, urbanization, unemployment, alcoholconsumption, and nonlethal violent crime.
Conclusions. Although our study cannot determine causation,we found that in areas where household firearm ownership rateswere higher, a disproportionately large number of people diedfrom homicide.
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