How do drug traffickers arm themselves? If we were to take as gospel US TV shows such as Breaking Bad, we could be left with the impression that gun battles are a matter of each side pulling out semi-automatic rifles and firing shots at their enemies.

Except that does not seem to be the case at all - at least in the United States. The Small arms survey 2014, released last week, looked at over 140,000 small arms seized, light weapons and rounds of light weapon ammunition seized by police forces in eight US cities between 2007 and 2012. Of the total, 10,345 were linked to felons, drug traffickers and gang members.

77% of the weapons were simply handguns, with 70% of these being semi-automatic pistols. In contrast, rifles, such as the Kalashnikov and AR-15, made up just 12%. The number of machine guns seized was negligible.

How do the illicitly held guns break down?

Almost 5,824 of the firearms were linked to drug trafficking arrests. 70% of these were handguns, most of which were semi-automatic.

Rifles make up 15.4% of the total followed by shotguns at 11.9%. The small amount of machine guns make up less than one percent of the sample.



When looking specifically at handguns, semi-automatic pistols were in the majority at 2,096 - that's almost three times the amount of revolvers, which were the second most-seized.

The report also collected data on gun seizures in Mexico, where it appears the direct opposite was true. According to a similar study in the 2013 edition of the survey, south of the border, 72% of the guns seized were long guns (machine guns, rifles, shotguns and sub-machine guns).

Only data from Houston and Los Angeles had sufficient information to allow gun seizures to be linked to gang activity. However, in those two municipalities 79% (621) and 92% (421) of firearms seized were handguns.

FBI data indicates that in 72% of homicides in 2012 involving firearms the weapon was a handgun. That rose to 77% for drug-related murders, 75% for gangland killings and 83% of juvenile gangland killings.



Background and methodology

Although most guns in the US are legally owned, a major exception is in the case of felons (people convicted of a serious crime) as it is illegal for them to be in possession of a firearm. Gang members are often in that situation.



Commenting on the data, Aaron Karp, senior consultant for the Small arms survey, said:

Seizure data is controversial in the United States. A lot of people don't believe it's a legitimate resource for research because it counts what the police has seized but it doesn't include a juridical determination of how the guns were used in crime, whether they were used legally or illegal, or whether they were returned subsequently. Like most real data, it's not clean, but data on seizures from gang members is extremely useful

We've already noted that Houston and Los Angeles were the only places where gang-related firearm seizures were identifiable. The eight municipalities where crimes could be linked to drug trafficking were the following (with the number from each in brackets: Albuquerque (916), Boise (123), Columbus (112), Denham Springs (2), Houston (1,876), Los Angeles (2,411), Satellite Beach (2) and Washington D.C. (382)



Kaap thinks that the results of the survey are surprising when compared to Hollywood cliches. "It turns out it's easier for Hollywood movie producers to get automatic rifles than for actual gang members," he said. "The figures show that choice plays a really important role, but concealability matters enormously."



Emile LeBrun, a contributing editor to the survey, agreed: "In American popular culture, especially on television, it's common to see gang members and drug dealers wielding high-powered assault rifles. Shows like Breaking Bad and CSI are recent examples. But police actually seize far fewer of those larger long guns from these groups than handguns. That's the sense in which the report may overturn stereotypes."

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