Homicides and its relationship with permits for carrying and ownership firearms in Guatemalan municipalities (2018)

ABSTRACT

Guatemala has one of the highest firearm homicide rates and gun ownership per capita in the world. This paper discusses the extent to which it stands as a case to add to the routine activity hypothesis versus the fear hypothesis. Using a negative binomial regression model, this study tested the relationship between firearm possession and homicide rates in its municipalities in 2018. A new dataset at the municipal level on firearm possession and ownership for 2018 was obtained from DIGECAM. The data were obtained from the National Civil Police and the 2018 Population and Housing Census. The authors found empirical evidence stating that the absence of security, justice institutions, and regional subculture of violence leads the population to use firearms due to fear or perceived risk of self-protection.

KEYWORDS:

• Guatemala
• firearm homicides
• gun ownership
• gun carrying

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Machismo is defined as a masculine ideal that emphasises male dominance over the feminine. It is also related to violence towards other men as a mechanism to preserve their masculine identity (Pena, 1991).

2. Firearms ownership refers to licences granted to individuals to keep guns in their homes for self-protection.

3. “The ladino population are Guatemalan born (rather than Spanish born) race individuals who have chosen to set aside signifiers of indigenous identity (such as language and indigenous dress” (Lesniewski et al., 2021, p. 2).

4. Diálogos is a non-profit think tank integrated by Guatemalan academics and researchers. (https://www.dialogos.org.gt/).

5. The control variables included in the study were identified on the basis of having an opposite correlation with the relationship between the variables homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants and the rate of gun ownership. Otherwise, they could suppress the evidence of any positive effect of the level of guns on the homicide rate.

6. Due to the high correlation between the variables gun ownership and gun carrying (0.89, p < 0.01), it was decided to run two regression models, the first included only the gun ownership and in the second gun carrying was included as an independent variable.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología [054326].