Firearm Use, Injury, and Lethality in Assaultive Violence

Abstract

This article extends the study of race and ethnicity and violence by examining ethnic differences in firearm use, injury, and lethality in assaultive violence (homicide and aggravated assault) in the multiethnic city of Miami. Specifically, the article compares Latinos relative to non-Latino Blacks and non-Latino Whites. Controlling for the effects of other victim, offender, and incident characteristics, logistic and multinomial logistic regression analyses indicate that firearm use has large and similar effects on event lethality for Latino and non-Latino Black offenders but no significant effect for non-Latino Whites. However, Latino, Black, and White attackers are equally likely to use a gun in violent encounters. The authors discuss the implications of these ethnic patterns in terms of prevailing conceptions of firearm violence.