Firearms and Crime - Armed Robbery

The FBI defines robbery as "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control

SOURCE: "Table 44. Law Enforcement Officers Accidentally Killed; Region, Geographic Division, and State, 1993–2002," in Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2002, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2003, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/02leoka.pdf (accessed October 9, 2004)
U.S. Territories	20	3	0	0	4	2	6	1	1	1	2
American Samoa	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0
Guam	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Mariana Islands	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Puerto Rico	18	3	0	0	4	2	1	1	1	1	2
U.S. Virgin Islands	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0

TABLE 5.6

Assaults on federal officers, by extent of injury and weapon, 1998–2002
Extent of injury	Total	Firearm	Knife or cutting instrument	Blunt object	Bomb	Vehicle	Personal weapons	Threat	Other
Note: The two deaths that resulted from the events of September 11, 2001, are not included in this table.
SOURCE: "Table 65. Assaults on Federal Officers; Extent of Injury by Type of Weapon, 1998–2002," in Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2003, http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/02leoka.pdf (accessed October 9, 2004)
Total	2,772	302	49	79	6	314	1,013	363	646
1998	653	66	9	13	1	92	253	88	131
Killed	6	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Injured	175	3	0	4	0	26	129	0	13
Not injured	472	57	9	9	1	66	124	88	118
1999	627	100	13	9	0	55	234	91	125
Killed	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Injured	171	32	3	4	0	13	108	0	11
Not injured	455	67	10	5	0	42	126	91	114
2000	528	56	7	6	5	50	171	52	181
Killed	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Injured	124	5	1	4	0	12	80	0	22
Not injured	404	51	6	2	5	38	91	52	159
2001	590	46	4	28	0	70	182	67	193
Killed	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Injured	126	4	2	22	0	17	67	0	14
Not injured	464	42	2	6	0	53	115	67	179
2002	374	34	16	23	0	47	173	65	16
Killed	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Injured	132	1	5	10	0	8	103	0	5
Not injured	241	32	11	13	0	39	70	65	11

of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear." As in the case of murder, armed robberies are recorded from police investigations and do not involve actual convictions following a trial. The data do not include robberies that are not reported to the police.

Weapons Used during Robberies

The impact of robbery on its victims cannot be measured only in terms of monetary loss. The goal of robbing someone is usually to obtain money or property, but the crime always involves force of some kind, and many victims suffer serious personal injury. Moreover, the psychological trauma can be severe and can affect the victim for the rest of his or her life. In 2002 there were 420,637 robberies reported to the police, an estimated decrease of 0.7% over the year before, representing 145.9 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants. As shown in Table 5.8, firearms were used in 42% of the robberies. The use of strong-arm tactics (bullying) occurred in another 39.9% of the robberies, knives or cutting instruments were involved in 8.7%, and other weapons were used in the remaining 9.3% of robberies.