“At-home” burglaries

The percentage of at-home burglaries is
higher in the US (14%) than it is in Canada (10%). If guns account
for the difference it is because US burglars are more likely to be
armed and feel that they can take on the residents.

US data comes from the National Crime Survey 1979-87. In 14.7% of
residential burglaries there was someone at home at the time. (Cited
in “Crime and Justice: A Review of Research” v14 p56) The Canadian
figure is for Edmonton in 1987 from “Canadian Urban Victimization
Survey #9″. OK, the numbers are not strictly comparable, since one is
for an Canadian urban area, while the other is the whole US. It is
possible that the rate for Canada as a whole is higher than the US, if
the rate for Canadian rural areas is much higher than for urban areas,
but rural areas have higher levels of gun ownership, so either way we
have more at-home burglaries where there are more guns.