Shocker; legal gun owners don’t commit gun-related crimes
University of Pittsburgh researchers partnered with Pittsburgh police to track guns used in their community to commit crimes and they discovered that more than 80% of legal gun owners just don’t commit gun-related crimes, according to the Washington Post;
They found that in approximately 8 out of 10 cases, the perpetrator was not a lawful gun owner but rather in illegal possession of a weapon that belonged to someone else. The researchers were primarily interested in how these guns made their way from a legal purchase — at a firearm dealer or via a private sale — to the scene of the crime.
[…]
The top-line finding of the study — that the overwhelming majority of gun crimes aren’t committed by lawful gun owners — reinforces a common refrain among gun rights advocacy groups. They argue that since criminals don’t follow laws, new regulations on gun ownership would only serve to burden lawful owners while doing little to combat crime.
Of course they don’t discuss the number of guns that went into the hands of criminals through private sales or gun shows. But the FBI interviewed criminals a few years back and determined that about 1% of crimes were committed with guns that came from those sources. In this study, the researchers examined 893 firearms that police recovered from crime scenes in the year 2008.
The study does paint gun owners as an irresponsible bunch – apparently we’re sloppy with storage of our firearms making it easy to steal from us. We’re also sloppy in reporting the loss to law enforcement. So that’s where the Washington Post sees it’s opportunity to regulate gun owners based on this research.
But Fabio’s research suggests that this strict dichotomy between “good guys” and “bad guys” isn’t necessarily helpful for figuring out how to keep “good” guns — those purchased legally — from getting into “bad” hands. And there may be modest, non-burdensome ways to help keep guns in the hands of the good guys.
For example, they like DC’s law that requires gun owners to report lost or stolen weapons within ten days – for whatever good that would do. The police find it difficult to find stolen cars, let alone handguns.
A 2000 report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms found that in 1998, more than 85 percent of gun dealers had no guns used in crimes trace back to them. By contrast, 1 percent of dealers accounted for nearly 6 in 10 crime gun traces that year.
The firearms bureau knows exactly who these gun dealers are — but they’re not allowed to share that information with policymakers or researchers due to a law passed by Congress in 2003. As a result, solutions for stanching the flow of guns from these dealers to crime scenes remain frustratingly out of reach for public-health researchers.
So, the Post wants to be able to track guns – Congress should mandate a federal database of guns sales. Another useless boondoggle that will do nothing to prevent crime. Like the guy in the TV commercials that “monitors” bank robberies but doesn’t stop bank robberies.
Category: Guns
But, the children
Unsurprising result.
I think that the study is valuable but it is just one city. Attackers have already pointed that out. Do similar work in more cities and we can generalize. I would suggest Detroit, Chicago, and Philly. Large enough to be important, fairly close, and Philly is in the same state so similar legal environment to Pittsburg.
The police find it difficult to find stolen cars, let alone handguns.
Mostly because unless they see the person doing it they have no idea where to start, and most people don’t understand that aspect of the reality behind police work. Without anywhere to start there’s little chance of recovering a car, a firearm, personal possessions…etc…
It’s why a couple hundred bucks worth of video gear is money well spent, you have photographic evidence of the shitbags stealing from you and thanks to the court proceedings being open to the public you know who they are and where they live. How you proceed with that information is up to you, but it is always satisfying knowing where the shitbags are located….
Many police departments today use license plate scanners which read a license plate and show the car or plate as being stolen.
The scanners can read hundreds of plates per second and are on when the police are cruising around.
You don’t have to have to see the person stealing the car. You only have to know the license plate.
What happens if the thief takes off the license plate?
They have to put another one on, and usually they don’t think to match the type of car they stole with the type of plate they stole (i.e. tag that belongs on a Honda is displayed on a Ford). Usually that’s a bit of a tip off, but that takes a human eye. LPRs are great, but they aren’t perfect.
Also, I agree with VOV, it’s nice to have a place to start from. If I stop a guy and find a gun on him, run the serial number and find out its stolen, great, now I’ve got him for the felony. If no one reported it being stolen, at that point most I might have is a misdemeanor concealed weapon violation.
Fast and Furious.
Need I say more?
Also, for the record I do own and utilize 3 gun safes and lockers. I do advocate securing weapons when not being carried or used. That would help our credibility as responsible gun owners somewhat…
I loved the part about the “bad gun” dealers. They are probably FFL’s outside of a major urban center or somewhere down south. But if they were selling guns illegally why aren’t they arrested? Because there is a 99% chance that all of these guns that find their way into criminals hands are purchased as a straw purchase. Maybe we should make that a felony, oh wait…..
I’d actually be interested in a more updated study, as the data in the ATF report is 18 years old. IIRC, the Bush administration did target the 1% of loosy goosy FFL operations that accounted for a high number of traces for increased oversight/investigation.
I might have written that differently, Jonn. Given relative populations, even if 20 percent of gun crimes are committed by legal gun owners, that would tell me probably 98+ percent of gun owners commit no crimes.
Ex: Even if 1M “gun related” crimes are committed in a year, that would mean 200k were done by legal owners. And with 80M gun owners, 200,000/80,000,000=0.25%.
Then again, it could just be me being a dickweed.
You weren’t the only one who thought that, SEA. So I decided to find some data and do an estimate of just what fraction of those who legally own firearms in Pittsburgh use them to commit crimes.
It’s not anywhere near 20%.
One site I found indicated that the City of Pittsburgh has a population of around 305,000. It also states that there are about 2,550 violent crimes each year in Pittsburgh. Data was found at:
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/pa/pittsburgh/crime/#data
Assuming 80% of those violent crimes involve firearms, that means there were about 2,040 “gun crimes” in Pittsburgh in a typical year.
Of those “gun crimes”, only 20% were committed by legal firearms owners. That yields 408 “gun crimes” committed by legal firearms owners.
Nationally, around 1 American in 4 owns a firearm. Assuming that’s true in Pittsburgh, that means about 75,250 Pittsburgh residents likely legally own firearms.
408/75,250 = 0.005419+ = about 0.542%. That means only a bit more than 1/2 of 1 percent of legal firearms owners use them to commit crimes in Pittsburg. It works out to about 1 in 185.
Pittsburgh has a relatively high rate of crime, so I’d guess that number (0.542%) is likely higher than the national average.
Or we could require firearm owners to submit a fired shell casing into the state or feds everytime we purchase a weapon, just like they did in Maryland.
Oh wait, how’d that work again? Millions spent over 15 years and exactly ZERO crimes solved from it as a result.
And how much money was spent on this study that does nothing besides repeat the obvious? The fascists still won’t believe it.
And anybody trying to get their hands on my weapons, apart from my nightstand 1911, will need to win a rather nasty gunfight with me first, then remove my large and very heavy safe(s) from my house to someplace the cops won’t be responding to any time soon, then have a professional safecracker open it. In other words, it’s far cheaper, faster, and easier to make a black market purchase, which will certainly net them something more in line with criminal tastes (full-auto capable) than anything they could ever get from me.
There’s at least one idiot gun owner in a town adjacent to mine in SE Michigan. This fool reports his revolver stolen. He put it in the glove box of his car and then uses valet parking at a casino in Detroit! He gets home in the middle of the night, parks his car in the driveway (Oh yes officer, I locked the car), and doesn’t think about the gun until one or two days later and finds it missing. Chuckleheads like this deserve to have their right to carry revoked.
Wasn’t a California cop was he? They tend to lose their weapons out of their vehicles at alarming rates. ..
“The police find it difficult to find stolen cars, let alone handguns.”
The researchers involved in this study have more degrees than a standard thermometer. This means two things. First, that the careers of the involved academics who don’t have tenure are dead. Second, that the Left will ignore the study. Note that the WaPo didn’t really cover this. The article appeared in the WaPo’s Wonkblog.
I got a speeding ticket on the way home from picking up my AR-15 from the gunsmith, does that count as a gun-related crime?
Gun control is what, exactly? It’s not the control of guns. It’s just a rather innocuous sounding term for the restrictions, prohibitions, and limitations on the purchase and possession of firearms imposed by government. Some of those restrictions, prohibitions, and limitations are onerous and some are not. Should a 10-year old be permitted to purchase a handgun? Should a lunatic? Reasonable people would say no. So, not all restrictions, prohibitions, and limitations are anti-gun efforts, but many are. It may be the high cost and low approval rate of concealed carry permits in many locales. It may be yet another law to pile atop the mountain of laws regarding firearms and ammunition. Whatever it may be, it isn’t “gun control.”
Yep. When it comes to those advocating “gun control” . . .
It’s not about guns.
It’s not about public safety.
It’s not about “the children”.
It’s not about public health.
It’s not about “reducing violent crime.”
It’s about control – nothing else. Because they fear those who think for themselves.