Male officers are more than twice as likely as female officers to have fired their weapon (30% vs. Gender is one of the best, this analysis finds. Not all demographic characteristics are equally good predictors of gun use. (For more, see “About this analysis” below.) Male officers, whites more likely to have fired weapon Other factors common to both gun use while on duty and working in a large city may be the real cause. For example, while the study shows that officers working in larger communities are more likely 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 county is the reason – or even a reason – why officers are disproportionately likely to have fired their guns. Second, it is important to bear 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. The study is a snapshot of officers who are employed currently, and it describes their past experiences. (The question asked: “Other than on a gun range or while training, have you ever discharged your service firearm while on duty, or have you not done this?”) Nor were officers asked how many times they have fired their service weapon in their careers or whether they currently work for the same agency where they fired their service weapons. First, the fact that an officer has fired their service weapon while on duty should not be interpreted to mean that the officer shot someone. Again, the relationship between these attitudes and whether or not an officer has fired his or her service weapon is statistically significant even after controlling for other factors in the analysis.īefore examining these and other results in more detail, two important cautions must be raised.
They also are somewhat more likely 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 have fired their service weapon vs. For example, they are somewhat more likely to approve of harsh, physical methods for dealing with some people than their colleagues who have not discharged their gun (49% vs 42%). Officers who have fired their weapon differ from their colleagues on other issues as well. 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. For example, while solid majorities of those who have and have not fired their weapon favor protecting gun rights over controlling gun ownership, officers who have fired their weapon are somewhat more likely to favor protecting gun rights than those who have not used their firearm. Each relationship is significant after controlling for other factors that could be associated with firing a service weapon.Īt the same time, an analysis of officers’ views on a range of law enforcement issues finds that having fired a service weapon bears a modest but consistent relationship to several key attitudes.
To start, male officers, white officers, those working in larger cities and those who are military veterans are more likely than female officers, racial and ethnic minorities, those in smaller communities and non-veterans to have ever fired their service weapon while on duty. But an analysis of the survey results finds some modest but intriguing differences.
Overall, those who have fired a weapon on duty and those who haven’t are broadly similar in terms of their personal traits, the types of communities they serve and even their attitudes about crime-fighting. 14, 2016, among a nationally representative sample of 7,917 sworn officers working in 54 police and sheriff’s departments with 100 or more officers.īut among police officers, are some more likely than others to have fired their weapon in the line of duty? In fact, only about a quarter (27%) of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the job, according to a separate Pew Research Center survey conducted by the National Police Research Platform. About three-in-ten adults estimate that police fire their weapons a few times a year while on duty, and more than eight-in-ten (83%) estimate 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 Center national survey. Many Americans believe it is common for police officers to fire their guns.