The Lethality Continuum

[Paladin]

http://www.suarezinternational.com/lethality.html

The Lethality Continuum

By Tom Givens
http://www.rangemaster.com


I recently ran across a scholarly study that examined the circumstances around homicides and aggravated assaults, with an eye toward identifying factors that would tend to cause the event to end in a fatality. [1] The authors combined publicly available statistics from the FBI and Bureau of Justice Statistics along with various academic studies of violence to try to determine why some criminal events result in death and others do not.

I would recommend you read this study, as it has some insightful commentary. For the purposes of this brief article, I am going to excerpt some of the various data the authors of that paper brought together from various sources.

In this paper, one of the authors coined the term “lethality continuum�, which I had not seen before. In his view assault, aggravated assault, and murder are simply points along a continuum, just like the force continuum model with which we are all familiar. To me, this illustrated an important point.

We tend to focus on murder when we think about or discuss violence, and this overlooks this “lethality continuum� concept. We may be viciously assaulted, and seriously injured or crippled, without becoming a homicide. In fact, in most urban areas, modern trauma care is such that the vast majority of victims of violence survive. Victims who would have died from the exact same injuries 40-50 years ago routinely survive those injuries today. Of course, surviving the injuries does not mean it’s a good thing to be injured! You may be blind, paralyzed, missing an arm or eye, or left with another life altering disability—you just didn’t die.

In 1999, there were about 12,500 criminal (non-negligent) homicides in the US. That figure represents about one person out of each 22,000. Of course, that’s the nation-wide ratio. In some urban areas, like mine, the odds are more like one in 5,000. This is why looking only at the threat of homicide gives so many people a false sense of security. With odds of 1:22,000 a gambler would say, “Screw it, I’ll just play the odds�. A more intelligent threat assessment would require us to look at the non-fatal assaults, ANY OF WHICH could easily become homicides under the right circumstances.

For instance, in 1999 in the US, there were 6,163,670 assaults reported to the FBI. An assault is defined as an unlawful physical attack. Now, we’re talking about a 1 in 50 chance. One out of every four assaults was categorized as an Aggravated Assault (an assault involving a deadly weapon or serious bodily injury to the victim). That’s 1,503,280 Aggravated Assaults, or one for each 182 residents of the US. Again, that’s a national figure, that rises if we look at major urban areas. In my city, for instance, the actual ratio of Aggravated Assaults is one per 108 citizens, per year. So, even discounting lesser assaults, instead of 1:22,000 odds, what we’re really looking at are 1:182 odds. One out of every 120 of those Aggravated Assaults becomes a homicide. These are not odds I’m willing to gamble on. I am, therefore, always armed and always aware of the potential for violence.

Another aspect of the Lethality Continuum we often mis-calculate is the perception that potentially lethal assaults revolve around the threat posed by firearms. Again, this is caused by having our attention focused on Murder, rather than on Aggravated Assault. Guns are used in 65.2% of homicides, which leads us to focus all our attention on “gunfighting�.


A detailed look at Aggravated Assaults, however, shows a clear need for a broader focus, and more attention to an integrated approach to training, with hand to hand combatives getting more attention. When we look at Aggravated Assaults, we find guns only used in 22.7% of the incidents, with knives involved 24.9% of the time. Blunt objects (19.4%) and sharp objects (4.7%) added to knives (24.9%) makes up a total of 49% of the weapons involved in Aggravated Assaults. An offender armed with a knife or blunt object will not likely initiate his assault from across the parking lot, nor even across the room. Without some combative skills, you may not be able to even access your defensive firearm in these circumstances.

The last set of stat’s I’ll mention involve the location involved in Aggravated Assaults. Here are some numbers:

Home 13%
School 8.8%
Parking lot 7.9%
Restaurant/bar 5.3%
Street 4.8%.

A pragmatic look at these numbers tells us that rather than looking for “dangerous areas�, we should realize, accept, and internalize that ALL venues include a potential for violence. In modern society there are no safe places or violence-free zones, and as we move through life, we must be aware that violence can occur wherever there are people. As my friend John Farnam says, “When you least expect it, you’re elected!�

[1] Violent Encounters, A Criminal Event Analysis of Lethal and Nonlethal Outcomes, Weaver, et al
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Vol 20, #4, November 2004

[OverEasy]

Thanks Paladin! It is a good article. Especially to motivate people who aren't real serious about self protection.
Regards, OE

[fm2]

Tom always has some good insights!