Do good guys with guns deter bad ones? There is a growing body of research that suggest they don't. Here's the latest: Astudy published last week finds that police officers are three times more likely to be murdered while at work in those states with the highest rates of gun ownership, compared to states with the lowest rates of gun ownership. Between 1996 and 2010, 92 percent of law enforcement officers who fell victim to homicide while in the line of duty were shot.
The study, which appears in the American Journal of Public Health, joins a slew of others, all of which have found a positive correlation between gun ownership and higher homicide rates. In past studies, that correlation showed up even when researchers controlled for other characteristics of states, including levels of poverty and non-lethal violent crime, and the prevalence of urban environments. Together, this body of research undermines the popular belief that if criminals knew the people around them were likely to be armed, they would think twice about killing. Instead, the research suggests that when people—including police officers—encounter armed folks more often, they're more likely to be fatally shot.
[For more of this story, written by Francie Diep, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...hip-police-homicides]
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