[Table 2 is from an earlier version of this paper presented on November 21, 1996, at the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology in Chicago, Illinois.]

Table 2.  Variables Used in the Analysis^a

 

                                          Killers   Nonkillers

Variable                Description      Mean  S.D.  Mean  S.D.

 

KILLER    Subject is incarcerated for     1.00  0.00  0.00  0.00

            intentional criminal homicide

GUNOWNER  Subject personally owns a gun   1.41  0.33 1.28  0.45

MALE      Subject is male                 1.93  0.25 1.45 0.50

BLACK     Subject is African-American     1.44  0.50 1.11 0.31

HISPANIC  Subject is Hispanic             1.14  0.34 1.05 0.21

AGE       Exact age of subject in years  29.36 10.24 43.91 17.44

INCOME    Midpoint of personal income    16.45 16.77 16.64 17.07

            category, $1,000s

MARRIED   Subject is married             1.17  0.38 1.63  0.48

EDUC      Highest grade completed        10.29  2.67 12.37  3.01

SOUTH     Subject resides in South        1.43  0.49  1.34  0.47

KIDS      Subject has children < 18 years  1.62  0.49  1.72  0.45

VETERAN   Subject is veteran of military  1.24  0.43 1.17  0.38

 

Notes:

a. For imprisoned killers, the variables describe the person at the time of their arrest on the homicide charge.  For general population survey respondents, the variables describe the person at the time of interview.  Means and standard deviations (S.D.) pertain to the set of cases used to estimate most of

the models, i.e. those with nonmissing values on all of the listed variables.  KILLER was coded 0/1 and all other binary variables were coded 1/2.