When Can An Officer Draw His Weapon

Many Americans believe it is mutual for constabulary officers to fire their guns. About three-in-ten adults estimate that police fire their weapons a few times a year while on duty, and more than than eight-in-10 (83%) approximate that the typical officer has fired his or her service weapon at least once in their careers, outside of firearms grooming or on a gun range, co-ordinate to a contempo Pew Research Center national survey.

In fact, only about a quarter (27%) of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the task, according to a carve up Pew Research Eye survey conducted by the National Police Research Platform. The survey was conducted May 19-Aug. fourteen, 2022, among a nationally representative sample of 7,917 sworn officers working in 54 constabulary and sheriff's departments with 100 or more officers.

Only among constabulary officers, are some more likely than others to have fired their weapon in the line of duty?

Overall, those who have fired a weapon on duty and those who oasis't are broadly similar in terms of their personal traits, the types of communities they serve and fifty-fifty their attitudes about criminal offence-fighting. But an assay of the survey results finds some pocket-size but intriguing differences.

To start, male officers, white officers, those working in larger cities and those who are war machine veterans are more than 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. Each relationship is pregnant later on controlling for other factors that could be associated with firing a service weapon.

At the same time, an analysis of officers' views on a range of constabulary enforcement issues finds that having fired a service weapon bears a modest but consistent relationship to several key attitudes. For example, while solid majorities of those who accept and have not fired their weapon favor protecting gun rights over controlling gun ownership, officers who take fired their weapon are somewhat more likely to favor protecting gun rights than those who take not used their firearm. In fact, across a number of gun-related questions, officers who take fired their weapon while on duty are less probable to favor some measures that would restrict gun ownership or provide more government oversight over gun sales.

Officers who have fired their weapon differ from their colleagues on other bug likewise. For example, they are somewhat more than likely to approve of harsh, physical methods for dealing with some people than their colleagues who have non discharged their gun (49% vs 42%). They besides are somewhat more probable to say that the country has made the changes needed to assure equal rights for blacks than to believe more than changes are needed (85% among those who have fired their service weapon vs. 79% among officers who accept not). Again, the relationship between these attitudes and whether or not an officer has fired his or her service weapon is statistically significant even later on decision-making for other factors in the assay.

Earlier examining these and other results in more detail, two important cautions must be raised. Get-go, the fact that an officer has fired their service weapon while on duty should not be interpreted to mean that the officer shot someone. (The question asked: "Other than on a gun range or while grooming, have you always discharged your service firearm while on duty, or have you non washed this?") Nor were officers asked how many times they accept fired their service weapon in their careers or whether they currently work for the aforementioned agency where they fired their service weapons. The study is a snapshot of officers who are employed currently, and it describes their past experiences.

2d, 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 belch their gun. For instance, while the report shows that officers working in larger communities are more than likely than those in smaller communities to take fired their weapon sometime in their law enforcement careers, the data don't allow i to say that working in a big city or canton is the reason – or even a reason – why officers are disproportionately probable to have fired their guns. Other factors mutual to both gun use while on duty and working in a large urban center may be the real cause. (For more, see "About this assay" below.)

Male officers, whites more than likely to have fired weapon

Non all demographic characteristics are every bit good predictors of gun utilise. Gender is one of the best, this analysis finds. Male officers are more than twice every bit likely equally female officers to take fired their weapon (30% vs. 11%). This relationship remains significant even later accounting for gender differences in task assignment, length of service, race, age, the size of the metropolis and department they work for, and other factors.

White officers also are more likely than officers who are racial or indigenous minorities to have fired their weapon (31% vs. 21%). Veteran status also differentiates those who accept discharged their weapons from those who have non. Veterans make up 28% of all police officers, the survey finds, and amid this group, near three-in-ten (32%) have fired their gun, compared with 26% of those who take not served in the war machine.

Differences by city characteristics

The population size of the surface area where the officer works as well is associated with the probability that an officeholder will have fired his or her weapon while on duty. While 23% of officers in communities with fewer than 400,000 residents have discharged their gun, 30% of officers in areas with populations of 400,000 or more say they accept washed so. (As a point of reference, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Minneapolis, Minnesota each have about 400,000 residents, though law departments in these cities were non among those in the sample.)

It's possible, of course, that this relationship is non about the size of the customs but almost the level of violence that may be present in bigger cities. To test this theory, we combined our survey information with violent crime rates from 2022 – the well-nigh recent yr available – in each of the 54 areas nosotros studied.

The resulting assay finds that the tearing offense rate in the city or county where an officer works has a mixed impact on the likelihood that an officer has fired his or her service weapon. Officers who currently piece of work in cities with comparatively depression crime rates are significantly more probable to take fired their weapon than constabulary in cities that fall in the eye. (Violent crime is defined as murder, rape, armed robbery and aggravated attack; the data used in this assay were reported by individual police agencies to the FBI.)

Nearly one-in-five officers (22%) in areas with at least half-dozen and but fewer than x violent crimes per 1,000 residents in 2022 take ever fired their service weapon. Past contrast, almost a third (32%) of officers who work in areas with a lower violent criminal offence charge per unit have discharged their gun. In areas where the tearing crime rate is x or more, 28% of officers have fired their weapon. Yet, that proportion is not significantly different from the share that works in communities with fewer than six or six to fewer than x violent crimes per 1,000 residents.

Officers' attitudes and gun use on the task

Practice officers who have ever fired their weapon differ in terms of their attitudes from those who have not? To answer this question, nosotros compared the views of the ii groups of officers across a range of questions.

The analysis finds that officers who have fired their weapon are more supportive of gun rights than those who have not. Almost eight-in-ten officers who have fired their service weapon (82%) say protecting the correct of Americans to ain a gun is more of import than controlling gun ownership. By contrast, well-nigh seven-in-ten (71%) of those who accept not discharged their firearm while on duty share this view.

Officers who accept fired their weapon are also less likely than their colleagues to support restrictive gun measures, even later on controlling for other factors that may be related to these attitudes. For example, about a quarter (23%) of officers who have fired their gun support a ban on assault-style weapons, compared with 35% of other officers. About half (52%) of those who have shot their weapon favor creating a federal database to rail gun sales, a movement supported by roughly two-thirds (65%) of other officers.

Officers who have fired their weapon also are more probable than those who have not to agree that "some people can only be brought to reason the hard, physical way" (49% vs. 42%).

Finally, the analysis finds a modest difference betwixt the two groups of officers in terms of their views of racial progress. The survey finds that 85% of officers who take fired their service weapon while on duty say the state has fabricated the necessary changes to requite blacks equal rights with whites, a view shared past 79% of officers who have not fired their weapon.

Well-nigh this analysis

Findings reported in the graphics and text of this analysis reflect simple 2-fashion relationships. In other words, the findings on gender reflect the percentage of men and women officers who have e'er fired their weapon. Each of these findings was further subjected to more rigorous assay using a statistical technique known every bit logistic regression. This technique estimates the independent outcome of each characteristic, holding the other factors in the analysis constant.

The 14 factors controlled for in the logistic analysis were the officeholder's gender, age, race/ethnicity, education, years in police force enforcement, current consignment and rank, veteran status, size of the officeholder's section, whether the officer's agency was a police or sheriff's department, whether the section was located in an urban or suburban area, the census region where the officer'due south department was located, the size of the population served by the officeholder'southward department and the city or county's violent crime charge per unit in 2022. Unless otherwise noted, simply those relationships that were statistically significant after controlling for these factors are reported.