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Abstract
Three paradigms can be used to explain weapon lethality: rational choice and deterrence theory; social learning and cultural theory; and opportunity and prevalence theory. Each makes distinct predictions regarding the economic, psychological, and environmental factors that affect the use of weapons. Despite their merits, the sum of knowledge about violence and weapons may be increased by exploring the influence of variables derived from another paradigm: pure sociology. Black’s theory of retaliation and Cooney’s principle of predation provide the underpinning for a social structural‐based theoretical principle of weapon lethality. Building on those ideas, we propose that the lethality of weapons involved in interpersonal violence increases as the offenders and victims become less intimate and less alike culturally. Using National Crime Victimization Survey data, we test two hypotheses derived from this principle and primarily find support of the proposed social structural principle.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Janet Lauritsen, Adam Watkins, Richard Wright, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a draft of this paper. The work on which this paper is based was supported in part by a Research Grant Award from the National Science Foundation, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, Law and Social Sciences Program (NSF ID #: 0819090), and by a Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Missouri—St. Louis.
Notes
1. Although they do not test this particular idea, there are existing quantitative studies that suggest such a proposition may have validity. Nationally, for instance, firearms are used in approximately 14% of violent victimizations between strangers, but are used in fewer than 6% of incidents between intimate partners (Perkins, Citation2003). Another project found that in the city of St. Louis, three‐quarters of stranger‐homicides were committed with a gun, whereas that total for homicides between friends was roughly half (Decker, Citation1993).
2. Space limitations do not allow for an extensive review of research findings related to these theories. For a comprehensive review, see Welford, Pepper, and Petrie, Citation2004.
3. Note that pure sociology’s notion of social structure is different from more common notions of the concept found in the criminal justice literature (see, e.g., Wadsworth & Kubrin, Citation2003). The difference is that pure sociology sees the case/situation as the unit of analysis whereas other conceptions of social structure see the person/group as the unit of analysis. It is important to analyze the characteristics of particular situations because this approach recognizes that people/groups do not always behave the same way; in other words, the behavior of people/groups varies depending on the situation they are involved in. For instance, even the most violent people are not violent in all of their interactions; this variability between situations is worthy of attention (Black, Citation2004a, p. 147).
4. It is potentially true that Black (Citation2004a) has contributed to the study of violence by explicitly bringing the concept of weapon lethality to the attention of criminologists. Although rationality/deterrence, social learning/culture, and opportunity/prevalence theories of weapons imply distinct explanations of weapon lethality (as described above) they do not directly address this concept, at least to our knowledge. Thus, Black’s theory of weapon lethality may very well be the first explicit explanation of it.
5. For example, the NCVS offers information on non‐fatal violence only. Adding fatal violence to the proposed research would not change the substantive findings given that homicide makes up less than 1% of all violence in the USA.
6. The NCVS is not a proper tool for testing the effect of social status on violence because it does not systematically gather information on offenders’ income, employment, marital status, or formal education, although the survey does collection of such information for victims. As relates to testing pure sociology theories, the absence of such data is a limitation because tests should examine the difference in status between an offender and victim and not simply one or the other’s status. However, the NCVS is useful for testing the social distance aspects of pure sociology theories because the survey does collect information on the victim–offender relationship (a direct measure of relational distance) and their race/ethnicity (an indirect measure of cultural distance).
7. Since we have generalized Black’s idea to explain predation and retaliation with the same factor (social distance), this limitation does not directly apply to our results, but does preclude our ability to make claims about how retaliatory and predatory violence may behave differently. For a short discussion of differences in violent predation and retaliation with respect to relational distance, see Cooney and Phillips (Citation2002, p. 86).
8. The analyses are based on data beginning in Quarter 3 of 1993. This marks the first quarter in which pseudostratum and secucode (standard error computation unit code) variables were included in the NCVS data file. These variables in conjunction with the “person weight” in the file enables analyses that take into account the complex sample design of the NCVS (e.g., the survey weighted regression functions in STATA). The last year of data used in the analyses (2004) represents the most recent data available at the time of the analyses.
9. Note that weapon lethality is not simply a measure of weapon presence though these concepts are related. Weapon presence fails to consider instances in which physical assault was attempted or completed. Because of the overlap between the two concepts however, weapon presence is not included in the models. Correlations between the two variables are as follows: no weapon = −0.7214; firearm = 0.7103; knife = 0.5126; other type weapon = 0.2378; and unknown = −0.1182.
10. The measure of weapon lethality does not measure actual harm done or injury to the victim, but rather is an indicator of the potential amount of damage that can be generated by an object. The correlation between injury (none, minor, serious) and the four‐point measure of weapon lethality is 0.1054. The coding of weapon lethality is not discussed here, given issues related to analytic approach. Specific coding of this concept can be found in the Analytic Technique section. In incidents where multiple levels of weapon lethality are present, incidents are coded based on the highest level of weapon lethality.
11. A possible conceptualization of relational distance is a three‐category variable: intimate, other known, and stranger. This conceptualization indicates that “intimates” are closer relationally than are “other knowns.” Unfortunately, given the way the data are collected, it is not possible to ensure this. Research routinely defines intimates as “current or former spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend.” The problem is that it is not clear that an “ex” is closer relationally than some “other known” (e.g., one’s best friend) or even “stranger.” While it is possible to parse current and former spouses in the NCVS, this cannot be done with current and former boy‐ and girlfriends. Additional analyses were conducted using a three‐category relational distance measure. Findings indicate that in the models presented in Panels B and C, weapon lethality used does not differ between “knowns” and “intimates” (findings are available upon request). Given conceptual considerations and based on a consideration of additional analyses, we opted to go with the two‐category presentation. This portrayal accurately represents the theory under consideration and does not obscure any important findings.
12. The NCVS does not provide information for every aspect of social structure, such as data on offender’s wealth, employment, family, education, or data on the legal history (e.g., past arrests) of the victim or offender.
13. Some frequently used correlates of victimization are not used as controls in these models. First, race/ethnicity of the victim is not included given issues of multicollinearity between white non‐ethnics and cultural distance (correlation = −.2869) and between ethnics (any race) and cultural distance (correlation = 0.4774). Multicollinearity also precluded the inclusion of offender’s race in the models. Correlations between cultural distance and offender race are as follows: white = −0.5802; black = 0.2601; other = 0.4001; and unknown = 0.2474.
14. Another option is the use of a proportional odds logistic regression model (Long, Citation1997; Hosmer & Lemeshow, Citation2000). This approach models the probability that weapon lethality falls in the four intervals defined by the three cut‐points based on the measurement of social distance. This proportional odds model compares a single outcome response to one or more reference categories and resulting inferences from them lend themselves to a general discussion of direction of response and without a focus on specific outcome categories. We opted not to use this approach for several reasons. First, it is not possible to properly test for the assumption of parallel regression using post‐estimation techniques when using the survey weight procedures required by NCVS data. As an exercise a model was run using non‐survey weighted ordered logistic regression and post‐estimation tests demonstrated that the assumption of parallel regression was violated. That is, these post‐estimate tests indicated that should a model be run separately for each category of the dependent variable, slopes of the regressions would not be parallel—a requirement of using a proportional odds model (Long & Freese, Citation2005). Second, the use of a series of survey‐weighted binary logistic regressions provides more useful information to the reader. For example, with a proportional odds logistic regression, only one set of coefficients are presented for each independent and control variable. By using the multiple models approach, one can examine how coefficients vary in terms of value and sign across models.
15. For more detailed information about weighting in the NCVS, see Rennison and Rand (Citation2007).
16. It is possible to examine the influence of social distance as a composite measure on weapon lethality instead of the way it is presented in our analyses. That is, rather than using two distinct measures of social distance (cultural distance and relational distance), one can create a scale reflecting the sum of known/stranger (0, 1) and similar/different race/ethnicity (0, 1) into a single measure. This approach enables one to test the influence of social distance in total on weapon lethality. Models using this measurement scheme were estimated and findings demonstrate no substantive difference in the coefficients of all included variables. Coefficients associated with the summated “social distance” measure were significant at the p = .0000 level for models presented in Panels A, B and C (Panel A, b = 0.24, SE = 0.04, p = 0.0000 and AOR = 1.27; Panel B, b = 30, SE = 0.05, p = 0.0000 and AOR = 1.35; Panel C, b = 0.30, SE = 0.08, p = 0.0000 and AOR = 1.35). Given that estimating the social distance measure using two variables representing relational distance and cultural distance offers findings obscured when using the composite measure, and given space limitations, only the dual‐measure approach is presented. Findings from the composite measure analyses are available upon request.
17. Moreover, it is also possible that for cases of retaliatory violence, the effect of social distance on weapon lethality depends on the nature of the conflict. An ideal test of pure sociology theories of conflict management—such as retaliatory violence—would control for the type of wrongdoing being responded to (e.g., robbery vs. burglary or less money vs. more money stolen); see Black (Citation1979, Citation1983) for details. The NCVS does not allow for this level of specificity and so future work should explore this possibility with more suitable data sets.
18. For instance, we found that high‐lethality weapons rarely enter into conflicts recorded in the NCVS (11% in the case of knives/guns, 4.5% in the case of guns compared to 76% of cases with a bodily weapon). However the results suggested that the presence of such weapons is predictable. In other words, whether a highly lethal weapon is brandished in a conflict is not a random phenomenon, but varies closely with the social distance between disputants.