Citation

Laine C, Bornstein SS. Ann. Intern Med. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, American College of Physicians)

DOI

10.7326/M22-0865

PMID

35377712

Abstract

Americans have a complicated relationship with firearms. A 2021 survey found that 48% of Americans see gun violence as a very big problem in the country today, yet 4 in 10 adults live in a household with a gun, including 30% who say they personally own one (1). Household personal protection is a common reason Americans cite for gun ownership. Given the current divided and tense state of our nation with rising crime rates in some locales, one can see why people feel vulnerable and are seeking ways to protect that which is near and dear to them. An estimated 2.9% of U.S. adults became new gun owners between January 2019 and April 2021, corresponding to about 7.5 million people, of whom about 5.4 million had previously lived in a home with no guns (2). However, increasing evidence documents that gun ownership is not an effective strategy for protecting the well-being of oneself and one's household members.

In their article, Studdert and colleagues (3) report a study that included more than 17.6 million California adults and found a substantial increased risk for death by homicide among the 595 448 adults who did not own a gun but started living with a handgun owner during the study period. Rates of homicide were more than twice as high among these adults than among those who did not live with a handgun owner (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.33 [95% CI, 1.78 to 3.05]). Further, cohabitants of handgun owners had a sevenfold higher rate of being fatally shot by a spouse or intimate partner, and 84% of such victims were women. These findings suggest that living with a handgun owner does not seem to offer protection from homicide for adults...

Language: en