So does this series also include folks who used a firearm legally in their home to defend themselves? Or innocent civilians that were killed by criminals using handguns because the response time was too long? These same inidivduals may have survived if they could easily and legally obtain a firearm. You know folks who live in D.C., Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc., where legally owning a firearm for the average joe is almost impossible. Come on, you need to tell both sides, just not the side the fits your perconceived biases!
Thanks for your question. No, this portion of the series examined police officers killed by guns.
Law enforcement officers know and are taught that domestic disturbances and traffic stops are high-risk calls for personal assault. From the total domestic disturbance calls since 2000, what is the percentage of calls ending with officers being killed nationwide?
Thanks for writing.
The Post didn't gather the total domestic disturbance calls police around the country received. We gathered from various sources the names of all the officers killed by firearms during that period and examined how they were killed. We then looked for patterns and found that traffic stops and domestics outweighed other things such as making an arrest, coming to someone's aid, etc.
Thanks for your question.
It's unclear why federal authorities don't go after some of the straw purchasers--people who buy guns on behalf of someone else and falsely claims to be the intended owner.
What is the percentage of annual firearm sales that are sold to the people that actually misuse the firearm? Would appreciate answer to this so it can be determined if this percentage of the annual gun sales can be influenced by any additional legislation. If, before is was misused, a large percentage of the misused firearms changed hands (via private sales) after the initial dealer sale, additional laws at the dealer level would have little affect.
Thanks for writing in. We didn't examine those numbers in this part of the gun series.
That's a question you may want to pose to my colleague, David Fallis, who wrote about Realco in the first part of our gun series.
Hi. That's a question better answered by lawmakers or police officials. The ones I spoke with and quoted in the story gave varying answers, including changing the gun laws.
Thanks for writing. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but the series focused on police officers killed by guns and how the people who killed them got their weapons. The idea was to look closely at the guns used and determine where they came from, how people got them, etc.
Good luck with your reserach!
Thanks for your thoughts.
That's a great question for the agencies--the Philadelphia Police Department and the Indiana State Police.
Hello Cheryl, The investigation into police murders due to weapons is very interesting. I wonder, though, why police suicide, especially service guns during off duty, was not covered on the list of police deaths since 2000. I think that this would also be an important tool into the use of guns in an officer's life. If there is such a statistic, would you mind providing? Thank you!
Have you contacted the Officer Down Memorial Page? They may keep those numbers.
Thanks for your question. Building a database of officers killed by guns, tracing the guns, etc., was something The Post felt hadn't been done. I found it to be an eye opener because when I started this investigation a year ago, I had no idea what I was going to find.
Thanks for writing. Darryl Jeter, the man convicted of murdering Indiana State Trooper Scott Patrick three days before Christmas in 2003 was part of the story. It's also not often that a cop killer agrees to talk about his crime.
Hellp. As I reported, I interviewed more than 350 police officials, federal, state and local prosecutors, defense attorneys and others to get the information used to compile the two-day series.
When I started, I didn't know how many of the suspects were felons. It wasn't until I had examined all 511 cases that I learned how many were felons.
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