Relationship between lawful handgun ownership and risk of homicide victimization in the home

项目摘要/摘要 在美国，个人防护是购买和拥有枪支的主要动机， 尤其是手枪。然而，现有证据大多表明，持枪家庭的居民 更有可能--而不是更少--死于凶杀。证据基础的一个关键限制是个人- 关于枪支获取和致命袭击之间关系的水平研究在#年相对较少。 规模，只允许估计对整个人口的平均影响。这样的估计可能不具有保护性。 对某些亚群的影响(或不成比例的高风险)--例如，妇女或生活在 在危险的社区。这项研究的目的是探索生活在一个 家中有合法拥有的手枪和被谋杀致死的风险--总体上，以及各种 不同的子群。通过一个独特的、最近构建的28.6个队列，这些分析变得可行 对加利福尼亚州的100万成年居民进行了长达12.2年的跟踪调查。这一队列由一种混合的 枪支拥有者、与枪支拥有者同居的非拥有者，以及居住在没有枪支拥有者的家庭中的非拥有者 手枪。我们观察队列成员手枪上的个人级别的、随时间变化的信息 购买史(追溯到1985年)、特定原因死亡率和人口特征；家庭 识别符允许同居队列成员之间的联系。这项研究的重点将是发生在 以及受害者家中的周围。我们将首先将家庭中的凶杀案受害者比率与 而且没有手枪。接下来，我们将分别针对男性和女性重复这一分析；对于 不同年龄段、种族和民族群体；针对拥有手枪的家庭成员 (主要是男性)和那些没有房产但与业主(主要是女性)住在一起的人；以及 生活在相对危险和相对安全的社区的人。我们还将评估以下风险： 不同类型的杀人案(例如，家庭成员与陌生人犯下的杀人案)各不相同 在有手枪和没有手枪的家庭之间。所有这些关联都将通过拟合来估计 扩展的COX比例风险模型，调整了年龄、性别、种族和民族以及长枪 所有权；这些模型将允许基线危险根据社区的不同而不同。这是第一次 一项队列研究，以调查家庭接触枪支与 凶杀组。研究结果将为政策制定者、执法人员、公共卫生从业者以及- 最重要的是-手枪持有者和他们的同居者有更完整和准确的账目 生活在有手枪的家里的风险和好处。这些发现还将为枪支暴力事件提供信息 预防措施：可以使用关于谁是特别高凶杀率的更具体的信息 针对干预措施，量身定做公共卫生教育和宣传。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT In the United States, personal protection is the leading motivation for purchasing and owning firearms, especially handguns. However, available evidence mostly suggests that residents of homes with guns are more—not less—likely to die from homicide. A key limitation of the evidence base is that individual- level studies of the relationship between firearm access and lethal assaults have been relatively small in scale, permitting estimation only of average population-wide effects. Such estimates may miss protective effects (or disproportionately high risks) among certain subgroups—women, for example, or people living in dangerous neighborhoods. The goal of this study is to explore the relationship between living in a home with lawfully-owned handguns and the risk of dying by homicide—overall, and for a variety of distinct subgroups. These analyses are made feasible by a unique, recently-constructed cohort of 28.6 million adults residents of California who are followed for up to 12.2 years. The cohort consists of a mix of handgun owners, nonowners who live with owners, and nonowners who live in homes without handguns. We observe individual-level, time-varying information on cohort members’ handgun purchasing history (back to 1985), cause-specific mortality, and demographic characteristics; household identifiers permit linkage of cohabitating cohort members. The study will focus on homicides occurring in and around the victim’s home. We will begin by comparing rates of homicide victimization in homes with and without handguns. Next, we will repeat this analysis separately for men and women; for people of different age groups and race and ethnic groups; for household members who own handguns (predominantly men), and those who don’t own but reside with owners (predominantly women); and for people living in relatively dangerous and relatively safe neighborhoods. We will also assess how risks of different types of homicide (e.g., homicides perpetrated by family members vs by strangers) vary between homes with and without handguns. All of these associations will be estimated by fitting extended Cox proportional hazards models that adjust for age, sex, race and ethnic group, and long-gun ownership; the models will allow baseline hazards to vary according to neighborhood. This is the first cohort study to investigate the relationship between household exposure to firearms and risks of homicide. Study results will provide policymakers, law enforcement, public health practitioners, and— most importantly—handgun owners and their cohabitants with a more complete and accurate accounting of the risks and benefits of living in a home with handgun. The findings will also inform firearm violence prevention initiatives: more specific information on who is at especially high risk of homicide can be used to target interventions and tailor public health education and messaging.