https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2688536
The research at first would have intuitively obvious results that larger caliber equates to greater lethality (DUH), but there's a criticism of the JAMA article that can be offered about discarding intent from consideration. The smallest caliber group (.22, .25, and .32) could be considered as having less intent to kill than the two other groups since even criminals understand that you have a greater stop potential with larger calibers and intentionally using a .22 or .25 may not be focused on trying to kill. That reintroduces the intent question. Also questionable is the small data set for clear conclusions and whether the distribution of calibers was even across the 400 or so victims or if one caliber or the other was used more often.
None the less, we understand the relationship between caliber and lethality and can agree that larger calibers have a greater potential to stop an attacker, but when we look at their data we see another statistic of interest. The age and ethnicity of the victims. Overwhelmingly young black men who then may be assumed to be in high crime areas followed by young hispanic men. You could correlate high crime areas with shootings or youth with shootings and not be at odds with criminology.
More important than caliber is preventing violence in communities instead of trying to reduce the caliber used.
The research at first would have intuitively obvious results that larger caliber equates to greater lethality (DUH), but there's a criticism of the JAMA article that can be offered about discarding intent from consideration. The smallest caliber group (.22, .25, and .32) could be considered as having less intent to kill than the two other groups since even criminals understand that you have a greater stop potential with larger calibers and intentionally using a .22 or .25 may not be focused on trying to kill. That reintroduces the intent question. Also questionable is the small data set for clear conclusions and whether the distribution of calibers was even across the 400 or so victims or if one caliber or the other was used more often.
None the less, we understand the relationship between caliber and lethality and can agree that larger calibers have a greater potential to stop an attacker, but when we look at their data we see another statistic of interest. The age and ethnicity of the victims. Overwhelmingly young black men who then may be assumed to be in high crime areas followed by young hispanic men. You could correlate high crime areas with shootings or youth with shootings and not be at odds with criminology.
More important than caliber is preventing violence in communities instead of trying to reduce the caliber used.