ORIGINAL COMMUNICATION Firearm fatalities. A preliminary study report from Iran A. Amiri, 1,2 H. Sanaei-Zadeh, 1,2 H. Towfighi Zavarei, 1 F. Rezvani Ardestani, 2 N. Savoji 3 1 Department of Forensic Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; 2 Legal Medicine Organization, Tehran, Iran; 3 Law Enforcement Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, Iran SUMMARY. During the one-year period from March 2002 to March 2003 there were 89 firearm fatalities investigated by the Legal Medicine Organization of Iran in Tehran. We determined the characteristics of these 89 firearm deaths which comprised 0.83% of all postmortem examinations. Of these, 60.7% were homicides, 30.3% suicides, 4.5% accidental, and 4.5% unclassifiable. Most victims were young male. Military rifles were responsible for almost all suicides, whereas in homicide handguns were the preferred weapons. The most common site of entrance wounds in suicides were the under the chin (37%) and chest (25.9%). In homicide group, 42.6% of entrance wounds were located in the head. The suicidal gunshots were fired from contact/near contact range in 84.6% while this was the case in only two cases of the homicides. All but one of the suicides were committed at the garrisons or police stations. The unique pattern of suicide that was found in this series was not similar to that reported in earlier studies. We believe our pattern of firearm fatalities must be in great part due to the Iran’s strict gun control regulations and cultural background. Ó 2003 Elsevier Ltd and AFP. All rights reserved. Keywords: Firearms; Fatalities; Homicide; Suicide; Entrance site; Tehran; Iran Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine (2003) 10, 159–163 INTRODUCTION The percentage of deaths which are due to guns varies greatly in different parts of the world, mainly due to availability of weapons. There is a substantial and growing literature on the epidemiology of firearm- related deaths. Many of these directly address the issue of the impact of gun control on death rates. 1–9 Iran has very strict laws on the possession of firearms, therefore, it is conceivable that firearm-related fatal- ities might be correspondingly less. Furthermore, a number of circumstantial factors and autopsy findings like age, gender, place of death, range of fire, type of weapon used, number and site of entrance wounds has been studied in firearm fa- talities. 1–5;8–30 In Iran, little attention has been given to the role of firearms in the fatalities and no pub- lished study, however, has explored firearm-related deaths. These data led us to make an assessment of firearm fatalities in Tehran province to establish their inci- dence, patterns (in homicide versus suicide cases) and compare them with other studies. MATERIAL AND METHODS Tehran is the country’s most densely populated province, inhabited by nearly one fifth of the coun- try’s total population of 67 million people. The Legal Medicine Organization of Iran (LMO) is situated in Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine (2003) 10, 159–163 Ó 2003 Elsevier Ltd and AFP. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S1353-1131(03)00082-8 A. Amiri, Department of Forensic Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Legal Medicine Organization, Behesht Street, Tehran, Iran. H. Sanaei-Zadeh, Department of Forensic Medicine, Tehran Uni- versity of Medical Sciences, Legal Medicine Organization, Behesht Street, Tehran, Iran. H. Towfighi Zavarei, Department of Forensic Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. F. Rezvani Ardestani, Legal Medicine Organization, Behesht Street, Tehran, Iran. N. Savoji, Law Enforcement Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Identification Centre, Tehran, Iran Correspondence to: Dr. H. Sanaei-Zadeh, Tel.: +98-21-4096672; Fax: +98-21-5890703; E-mail: sanaee@iranmedical.com, h_sanaee46@yahoo.com 159