What Gun Do Cops Use

Many Americans believe it is common for police officers to fire their guns. About three-in-x adults estimate that police burn their weapons a few times a year while on duty, and more eight-in-ten (83%) approximate that the typical officer has fired his or her service weapon at least once in their careers, outside of firearms training or on a gun range, according to a recent Pew Research Heart national survey.

In fact, only about a quarter (27%) of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the task, according to a separate Pew Research Center survey conducted by the National Police force Research Platform. The survey was conducted May 19-Aug. 14, 2016, amid a nationally representative sample of 7,917 sworn officers working in 54 law and sheriff'due south departments with 100 or more officers.

But amidst police officers, are some more likely than others to have fired their weapon in the line of duty?

Overall, those who have fired a weapon on duty and those who haven't are broadly like in terms of their personal traits, the types of communities they serve and even their attitudes about crime-fighting. But an analysis of the survey results finds some modest but intriguing differences.

To first, male officers, white officers, those working in larger cities and those who are military veterans are more likely than female person officers, racial and ethnic minorities, those in smaller communities and not-veterans to have ever fired their service weapon while on duty. Each relationship is significant after controlling for other factors that could be associated with firing a service weapon.

At the aforementioned fourth dimension, an analysis of officers' views on a range of constabulary enforcement problems finds that having fired a service weapon bears a pocket-size only consistent relationship to several fundamental attitudes. For instance, while solid majorities of those who have and have not fired their weapon favor protecting gun rights over decision-making gun ownership, officers who have fired their weapon are somewhat more likely to favor protecting gun rights than those who take not used their firearm. In fact, across a number of gun-related questions, officers who have fired their weapon while on duty are less likely to favor some measures that would restrict gun ownership or provide more government oversight over gun sales.

Officers who accept fired their weapon differ from their colleagues on other issues also. For example, they are somewhat more likely to approve of harsh, physical methods for dealing with some people than their colleagues who accept non discharged their gun (49% vs 42%). They as well are somewhat more probable to say that the country has made the changes needed to assure equal rights for blacks than to believe more changes are needed (85% among those who accept fired their service weapon vs. 79% among officers who have not). Again, the relationship betwixt these attitudes and whether or non an officer has fired his or her service weapon is statistically pregnant even after controlling for other factors in the analysis.

Before examining these and other results in more item, two of import cautions must exist raised. Offset, the fact that an officeholder has fired their service weapon while on duty should not be interpreted to hateful that the officeholder shot someone. (The question asked: "Other than on a gun range or while preparation, have you ever discharged your service firearm while on duty, or have you non done this?") Nor were officers asked how many times they accept fired their service weapon in their careers or whether they currently work for the same agency where they fired their service weapons. The written report is a snapshot of officers who are employed currently, and it describes their past experiences.

Second, it is important to comport in mind that the factors that are associated with firing a duty weapon cannot necessarily be said to have caused officers to discharge their gun. For example, while the study shows that officers working in larger communities are more than probable than those in smaller communities to have fired their weapon sometime in their law enforcement careers, the data don't allow one to say that working in a large city or canton is the reason – or even a reason – why officers are disproportionately likely to have fired their guns. Other factors common to both gun apply while on duty and working in a large city may be the existent cause. (For more, run across "About this analysis" below.)

Male officers, whites more likely to accept fired weapon

Not all demographic characteristics are equally skillful predictors of gun utilise. Gender is one of the best, this analysis finds. Male officers are more than twice as likely as female officers to accept fired their weapon (thirty% vs. 11%). This relationship remains significant even after bookkeeping for gender differences in job assignment, length of service, race, age, the size of the metropolis and section they work for, and other factors.

White officers also are more probable than officers who are racial or ethnic minorities to have fired their weapon (31% vs. 21%). Veteran status as well differentiates those who take discharged their weapons from those who have not. Veterans make upwards 28% of all police officers, the survey finds, and among this group, about three-in-x (32%) have fired their gun, compared with 26% of those who accept not served in the military.

Differences by city characteristics

The population size of the expanse where the officer works also is associated with the probability that an officer volition accept fired his or her weapon while on duty. While 23% of officers in communities with fewer than 400,000 residents have discharged their gun, 30% of officers in areas with populations of 400,000 or more say they have washed then. (As a bespeak of reference, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Minneapolis, Minnesota each have about 400,000 residents, though police departments in these cities were not among those in the sample.)

It's possible, of grade, that this relationship is not about the size of the customs only about the level of violence that may be present in bigger cities. To test this theory, nosotros combined our survey information with violent crime rates from 2015 – the most recent year bachelor – in each of the 54 areas nosotros studied.

The resulting analysis finds that the trigger-happy crime charge per unit in the metropolis or county where an officer works has a mixed impact on the likelihood that an officer has fired his or her service weapon. Officers who currently piece of work in cities with comparatively low criminal offence rates are significantly more likely to take fired their weapon than police in cities that fall in the center. (Trigger-happy criminal offence is defined as murder, rape, armed robbery and aggravated assault; the data used in this analysis were reported past private police agencies to the FBI.)

About one-in-v officers (22%) in areas with at least half dozen and but fewer than 10 trigger-happy crimes per 1,000 residents in 2015 have ever fired their service weapon. By contrast, well-nigh a third (32%) of officers who piece of work in areas with a lower violent offense rate have discharged their gun. In areas where the violent crime rate is 10 or more than, 28% of officers accept fired their weapon. However, that proportion is not significantly different from the share that works in communities with fewer than half-dozen or half dozen to fewer than 10 violent crimes per 1,000 residents.

Officers' attitudes and gun utilise on the task

Do officers who accept ever fired their weapon differ in terms of their attitudes from those who accept not? To reply this question, we compared the views of the ii groups of officers beyond a range of questions.

The analysis finds that officers who have fired their weapon are more supportive of gun rights than those who have non. About viii-in-ten officers who have fired their service weapon (82%) say protecting the right of Americans to ain a gun is more of import than controlling gun ownership. By contrast, about seven-in-10 (71%) of those who have not discharged their firearm while on duty share this view.

Officers who take fired their weapon are also less likely than their colleagues to support restrictive gun measures, even after controlling for other factors that may be related to these attitudes. For case, about a quarter (23%) of officers who take fired their gun support a ban on assault-mode weapons, compared with 35% of other officers. About half (52%) of those who have shot their weapon favor creating a federal database to runway gun sales, a movement supported by roughly two-thirds (65%) of other officers.

Officers who have fired their weapon also are more than probable than those who have non to agree that "some people can only be brought to reason the hard, physical manner" (49% vs. 42%).

Finally, the analysis finds a modest divergence between the two groups of officers in terms of their views of racial progress. The survey finds that 85% of officers who have fired their service weapon while on duty say the state has made the necessary changes to give blacks equal rights with whites, a view shared by 79% of officers who accept not fired their weapon.

About this analysis

Findings reported in the graphics and text of this analysis reflect uncomplicated two-way relationships. In other words, the findings on gender reflect the percent of men and women officers who have always fired their weapon. Each of these findings was further subjected to more than rigorous analysis using a statistical technique known every bit logistic regression. This technique estimates the independent issue of each characteristic, holding the other factors in the analysis constant.

The xiv factors controlled for in the logistic assay were the officeholder's gender, historic period, race/ethnicity, education, years in law enforcement, current assignment and rank, veteran status, size of the officer's department, whether the officeholder's agency was a police or sheriff'due south department, whether the section was located in an urban or suburban area, the census region where the officeholder's department was located, the size of the population served by the officer's department and the city or county'south violent crime charge per unit in 2015. Unless otherwise noted, only those relationships that were statistically significant after decision-making for these factors are reported.