Lifetime Prevalence of Defensive Gun Use, Offensive Gun Use, and Nonfatal Firearm Victimization among Michigan Adults

While guns have significant cultural importance in the United States, guns are also used in crimes and in self-defense and so many Americans will have experiences with guns that involve fear, property loss, or injury. We estimated the lifetime prevalence of offensive gun use (OGU), defensive gun use (DGU), and nonfatal firearm victimization (NFV), their co-occurrence, and their demographic correlates in a representative sample of adults living in the US state of Michigan. The sample was ascertained using probability-based recruitment with poststratification weights applied to match the major demographic benchmarks for the target population (N = 2489; 1265 female, 1224 male). Each domain of gun use and NFV were assessed using parallel items that ranged from telling someone you have a gun to shooting someone (or being shot by someone). Lifetime prevalence rates were 3.9% (95% CI 3.1%-4.9%) for OGU, 8.9% (95% CI 7.6%-10.4%) for DGU, and 29.7% (95% CI 27.6%-31.8%) for NFV. For each domain, about 80% of respondents only reported incidents that did not involve firing a gun. There was a high rate of co-occurrence between OGU and DGU (OR = 65.9, 95% CI 35.5-122.5), and between NFV and OGU (OR = 6.8, 95% CI 4.1-11.4) and DGU (OR = 3.8, 95% CI 2.7-5.3). Gun usage and/or NFV was associated with male sex, Black race, lower income and education, gun ownership, and military service or having a job that required carrying a firearm. When defined broadly, a large proportion of Michigan residents reported negative experiences with firearms, though a subset of cases involved use of a firearm for defense. The results suggest that firearm-involved encounters may be more common than thought and the need for public policy to minimize firearm-related harms.