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Monday October 09 05:16 PM EDT
Gun Injuries on Decline, Feds Say

WASHINGTON ( APBnews.com) — Injuries and deaths caused by firearms declined by 40 percent in the mid-1990s, the Department of Justice reported in a new study, but at least one expert says the reasons for the reduction are still unclear.

Citing data gathered for the years 1993-97, the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics looked at reports of gun crime from its own National Crime Victimization Survey, hospital intake information, death certificates at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI’s uniform crime reports.

The BJS study showed that gunshot wounds from assault treated in hospital emergency rooms fell to 39,400 cases in 1997, a 39 percent decline during the period. The number of homicides with a gun also dropped, by 27 percent, to 13,300 for 1997, the most recent year for which national information is available.

Out of 19.2 million incidents of non-fatal violent crime examined, excluding simple assault, less than 1 percent resulted in gunshot wounds, the report said.

No ‘grand, unifying theory’

Jon Vernick, a professor and associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, said it’s too early to credit one of any number of credible reasons for the downward trend.

Besides a good economy and the waning of the crack cocaine epidemic, possible factors include tougher sentencing, aggressive policing, the Brady gun control law and various concealed weapons laws, Vernick said.

Community-based organizations have also done much to give young people alternatives to hanging out on the streets late at night, he said.

“As far as I’ve seen in the science literature, no one has adequately explained the decline,” Vernick said. “No one has yet produced the grand, unifying theory.”

More than half of victims black

But one of the strongest possible explanations could be the demise of the crack cocaine problem in the early 1990s, which claimed a disproportionate number of inner-city black males in gun-related deaths, he said.

Beginning in the late 1980s, gangs fought deadly turf battles in the streets, and the victim pool grew to include customers, who died off in droves from the resulting violence. By 1993, gang warfare became rare, and many drug offenders were behind bars or dead.

Though BJS reported that 54 percent of those killed or injured by firearms between 1993-97 were black, Vernick said it is “it is not surprising that black males are going to benefit from the decline.”

‘Very good news’

The study also showed that 62 percent of non-fatal injuries caused by incidents involving a gun were from assaults and 17 percent were unintentional, or accidental, injuries.

Almost half of those wounded from assaults were hit in the extremities, a third in the trunk, and the rest in the head or neck. Two-thirds of accidental gunshot victims were wounded in the hands, legs or feet.

Vernick called attention to one portion of gun injuries that has not seen as sharp a decrease as other categories: those who attempted suicide by firearm, a number that fell only 6 percent during the four-year period studied by the government.

National Rifle Association spokeswoman Patricia Gregory hailed the overall findings as “very good news,” but said that “those numbers would be reduced even further with strict enforcement of existing gun laws and aggressive prosecution of criminals with guns.”