Disparities in the Prevalence and Reporting of Civilian Justifiable Firearm Homicide

Background

Civilian justifiable firearm homicides (CJFH), an important component of defensive gun use, are central to debates on gun policy and ownership but have received limited scholarly attention. This study examines the prevalence and characteristics of CJFH across two national datasets, with a focus on understanding differences across datasets in the relationship of decedent race with the determination of justifiability.

Methods

This cross-sectional study used data from 2016 to 2022 from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) and Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Descriptive statistics and logistic regressions assessed the association between coded decedent race and the likelihood that a firearm homicide was coded as justifiable.

Results

After geographically harmonizing the datasets, CJFH incidents were more common in NVDRS (n = 1887) than SHR (n = 1576). NVDRS had a lower proportion of Black CJFH decedents (58%) compared to SHR (67%). Restricting to a more closely matched set of incidents, adjusted models showed higher odds of coding the decedents of CJFH as Black in SHR (OR: 1.17; 95% CI: 0.93-1.46) than NVDRS (OR: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.82-1.22).

Conclusions

Discrepancies in the racial composition of CJFH across NVDRS and SHR do not arise for other decedent characteristics or among non-CJFH cases. Differences in the coding of CJFH highlight potential issues with evaluating racial disparities and the need to address biases in firearm data infrastructure.