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BackgroundIn the past decade, most people who buy and own guns are doing so for self-defense. Yet little is known about actual defensive gun use in the USA.MethodsTo discover what information newspaper articles and local news reports might add, we read the news reports of defensive use incidents assembled by the Gun Violence Archive. We examined a sample of more than a quarter of the incidents from 2019, the last year before the pandemic. We examined all cases from four months—January, April, July, and October. We created a typology of defensive gun use incidents.ResultsOf 418 incidents, in about half, the perpetrator was armed with a firearm. In almost 90% of the cases, the victim fired their firearm—315 perpetrators were shot and about half of them died. The average number of perpetrators shot per incident was 0.75; the average number of victims shot was 0.25. We estimate that in 2019 fewer than 600 potential perpetrators were killed in defensive gun use incidents that made the news. Among the thirteen categories of shooting were drug-related (4% of incidents), gang-like combat (6%), romantic partner disputes (11%), escalating arguments (13%), store robberies (9%), street robberies (5%), unoccupied vehicle theft (5%), unarmed burglaries (7%), home invasions (20%), and miscellaneous (6%).ConclusionWe believe the Gun Violence Archive dataset includes the large majority of news reports of defensive gun use—and especially those in which the perpetrator is shot and dies. Some of the strengths of using news reports as a data source are that we can be certain that the incident occurred, and the reports provide us with a story behind the incident, one usually vetted in part by the police with occasional input from the victims, perpetrator, family, witnesses, or neighbors. Defensive gun use situations are quite diverse, and among the various categories of defensive gun use, a higher percentage of incidents in some of the categories seemed far less likely to be socially beneficial (e.g., drug-related, gang-like, escalating arguments) than in others (e.g., home invasions).

AbstractObjectiveTo take advantage of the arbitrarily timed increase in firearm and ammunition availability brought on by the start of deer hunting seasons to study its impact on hunting, and importantly, non-hunting related firearm incidents.DesignQuasi-experimental analysis using start of hunting season in United States.SettingPopulations of US states with highest number of hunting accidents reported in the Gun Violence Archive for deer hunting seasons between 2016 and 2019.Participants10 US states (Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin).Main outcomes and measuresAverage per capita weekly rates of firearm incidents overall and among specified categories of firearm incidents in the periods before, during, and after the opening of deer hunting seasons combined into a single analysis across four years and 10 states, adjusting for state fixed effects.ResultsCompared with control periods before and after the opening period, the start of the hunting season was associated with a 12.3% relative increase in the rate of firearm incidents overall (absolute change 1.34-1.50 incidents per 10 million population; 95% confidence interval for relative change 3.0% to 21.6%, P<0.01). Relative increases were observed for incidents categorized as hunting incidents (absolute change <0.01-0.05 per 10 million; relative change 566%), suicide (0.70-0.77; 11.1%), incidents involving alcohol or other substances (0.07-0.13; 87.5%), domestic violence (0.13-0.16; 27.4%), defensive use (0.08-0.10; 27.8%), home invasion or robbery (0.13-0.17; 30.4%), and incidents related to firearm carry licenses (0.40-0.48; 19.4%). No differences were observed for incidents involving children or police officers.ConclusionsThe start of hunting season was associated with increased rates of hunting and non-hunting related firearm incidents, most plausibly because of the increased availability of firearms and ammunition. The results suggest that efforts to promote firearm safety at the beginning of hunting season could help reduce hunting and non-hunting related firearm incidents.

Background The impacts of social stressors on violence during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic are unknown. We hypothesized that firearm purchases and violence would increase surrounding the pandemic. This study determined the impact of COVID-19 and shelter-in-place (SIP) orders on firearm purchases and incidents in the United States (US) and New York State (NYS). Methods Scatterplots reflected trends in firearm purchases, incidents, and deaths over a 16-month period (January 2019 to April 2020). Bivariate comparisons of SIP and non-SIP jurisdictions before and after SIP (February 2020 vs. April 2020) and April 2020 vs. April 2019 were performed with the Mann-Whitney U test. Results The incidence of COVID-19 in the US increased between February and April 2020 from 24 to 1 067 660 and in NYS from 0 to 304 372. When comparing February to March to April in the US, firearm purchases increased 33.6% then decreased 22.0%, whereas firearm incidents increased 12.2% then again increased by 3.6% and firearm deaths increased 23.8% then decreased in April by 3.8%. In NYS, comparing February to March to April 2020, firearm purchases increased 87.6% then decreased 54.8%, firearm incidents increased 110.1% then decreased 30.8%, and firearm deaths increased 57.1% then again increased by 6.1%. In both SIP and non-SIP jurisdictions, April 2020 firearm purchases, incidents, deaths, and injuries were similar to April 2019 and February 2020 (all P = NS). Discussion Coronavirus disease 2019–related stressors may have triggered an increase in firearm purchases nationally and within NYS in March 2020. Firearm incidents also increased in NYS. SIP orders had no effect on firearm purchases and firearm violence.

Ghost Game, directed by Jill Gevargizian (who burst onto the scene with her impressive first feature The Stylist, 2022), is an eerie home invasion flick that takes a left turn, unexpectedly going off the rails on a rocket sled with a third act that will have you checking the locks before going to bed. Add in an unbelievably charming dog named Darby who may or may not be the Devil and a hilarious, insightful Q&A following the film and you've got a fantastic conclusion to the Hollywood Theater portion of the Portland Horror Film Festival, making it more than worth than staying out until nearly 1 A.M. The first day at the Clinton Street Theater - Portland's oldest movie theater - featured not one, not two, but three Premiers. The first, Did I?, directed by Sarah Nice, is a thoughtful, nuanced, head swirling look at mental health and trauma by looking at the sometimes-controversial Dissociative Identity Disorder. Saturday night's final feature - making its Portland debut - felt like a main event and a proper festival moment.

Debate has surrounded the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes for decades. Some have argued medical marijuana legalization (MML) poses a threat to public health and safety, perhaps also affecting crime rates. In recent years, some U.S. states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, reigniting political and public interest in the impact of marijuana legalization on a range of outcomes. Relying on U.S. state panel data, we analyzed the association between state MML and state crime rates for all Part I offenses collected by the FBI. Results did not indicate a crime exacerbating effect of MML on any of the Part I offenses. Alternatively, state MML may be correlated with a reduction in homicide and assault rates, net of other covariates. These findings run counter to arguments suggesting the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes poses a danger to public health in terms of exposure to violent crime and property crimes.

A young couple in a nameless Mexico suburb spot a stranger standing outside their home, foreshadowing what will turn out to be a frightening night.

Do people punish more than they would if the decision costs were more transparent? In two Internet-based vignette experiments, we tested whether juvenile sentencing recommendations among U.S. adults are responsive to variation in the salience of the taxpayer costs and public safety benefits of incarceration. Using a 2 Cost (present vs. absent) x 2 Benefit (present vs. absent) factorial design, Experiment 1 (N = 234) found that exposure to information about the direct costs of incarcerating the juvenile offender reduced sentencing recommendations by about 28%, but exposure to the public safety benefits had no effect on sentences. Experiment 2 (N = 301) manipulated cost-benefit salience by asking participants to generate their own list of costs of incarceration, benefits of incarceration, or an affectively neutral, unrelated word list. Results revealed a similar selective effect whereby sentencing recommendations were reduced in the cost condition relative to the benefits and control conditions, but sentences in the benefit condition did not differ from the control. This combined pattern suggests that laypeople selectively neglect to factor cost considerations into these judgments, thereby inflating their support for punishment, unless those costs are made salient. These findings contribute to the debate on transparency in sentencing.

•Humans harbor traceable skin microbiota that discriminatively shape residential homes.•Humans harbor unique microbial combinations (uESVs) that can be used to trace human interactions.•Utilizing uESVs, burglars can be sourced to surface interactions during mock burglaries. When mapped to the environments we interact with on a daily basis, the 36 million microbial cells per hour that humans emit leave a trail of evidence that can be leveraged for forensic analysis. We employed 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing to map unique microbial sequence variants between human skin and building surfaces in three experimental conditions: over time during controlled and uncontrolled incidental interactions with a door handle, and during multiple mock burglaries in ten real residences. We demonstrate that humans (n = 30) leave behind microbial signatures that can be used to track interaction with various surfaces within a building, but the likelihood of accurately detecting the specific burglar for a given home was between 20–25%. Also, the human microbiome contains rare microbial taxa that can be combined to create a unique microbial profile, which when compared to 600 other individuals can improve our ability to link an individual ‘burglar’ to a residence. In total, 5512 discriminating, non-singleton unique exact sequence variants (uESVs) were identified as unique to an individual, with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 568, suggesting some people maintain a greater degree of unique taxa compared to our population of 600. Approximate 60–77% of the unique exact sequence variants originated from the hands of participants, and these microbial discriminators spanned 36 phyla but were dominated by the Proteobacteria (34%). A fitted regression generated to determine whether an intruder’s uESVs found on door handles in an office decayed over time in the presence or absence of office workers, found no significant shift in proportion of uESVs over time irrespective of the presence of office workers. While it was possible to detect the correct burglars’ microbiota as having contributed to the invaded space, the predictions were very weak in comparison to accepted forensic standards. This suggests that at this time 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the built environment microbiota cannot be used as a reliable trace evidence standard for criminal investigations.

Toxoplasma (toxoplasmosis) and Plasmodium (malaria) use unique secretory organelles for migration, cell invasion, manipulation of host cell functions, and cell egress. In particular, the apical secretory micronemes and rhoptries of apicomplexan parasites are essential for successful host infection. New findings reveal that the contents of these organelles, which are transported through the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi, also require the parasite endosome-like system to access their respective organelles. In this review, we discuss recent findings that demonstrate that these parasites reduced their endosomal system and modified classical regulators of this pathway for the biogenesis of apical organelles.

For the complicated operation process, many risk factors, and long cycle of urban logistics, it is difficult to manage the security of urban logistics and it enhances the risk. Therefore, to study a set of effective management mode for the safe operation of urban logistics and improve the risk prediction mechanism, is the primary research item of urban logistics security management. This paper summarizes the risk factors to public security in the process of urban logistics, including pick up, warehouse storage, transport, and the end distribution. Generalized regression neural network (GRNN) is combined with particle swarm optimization (PSO) to predict accidents, and the Apriori algorithm is used to analyze the combination of high-frequency risk factors. The results show that the method of combining GRNN with PSO is effective in accident prediction and has a powerful generalization ability. It can prevent the occurrence of unnecessary urban logistics public accidents, improve the ability of relevant departments to deal with emergency incidents, and minimize the impact of urban logistics accidents on social and public security.