You might be surprised to hear this but, most criminals don’t respect gun laws. In fact, most criminals specifically purchased their weapons to help them commit their crimes. This article is going to cover some great research that details exactly how criminals use and obtain their firearms, in a wide variety of crimes.

These statistics are based off of a survey of federal and state prisoners, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). It is quite lengthy, and we won’t be able to cover all the information here, but I highly recommend giving it a read. In this survey, they asked inmates about their gun use including: how they obtained the firearm, how they used it during the crime, and much more.

How Many Criminals Use and Carry Guns During Their Crime?

The figure below shows us that roughly one in five criminals, who are incarcerated, possessed a firearm during the commission of their crime. The vast majority of them selected a handgun. Less than 5% of them obtained a firearm through a retail source.

We can also see about 12% of criminals used a gun during their crime, either brandishing it, or discharging it. Again, we can see that criminals are using handgun’s vs long guns, and most aren’t buying these firearms from retail locations.

As a side note, this study often breaks down stats between federal and state inmates. I would remind you all that most violent offenses are actually charged at the state level, rather than federally, so these stats are probably going to be more useful to us.

How Do Criminals Use Guns During Crimes?

Some criminals simply have a gun for protection, often from other criminals. However, many offenders in this study specifically obtained the firearm to use in their crime. Among state prisoners, who possessed a gun during their offense, 27% killed someone, 12% injured someone, and around 54% did not fire it.

At first glance this is quite sobering. Roughly one in four criminals killed someone with their firearm, and nearly half of them shot someone with it, either injuring, or killing them. I would point out that there is definitely some sample bias here, as offenders who shoot at others are more likely to be in prison.

In most states brandishing a weapon is a misdemeanor, and the offender would not be subject to a prison term, as prison is generally for offenders that receive sentences of longer than one year, and for serious felonies. I think the takeaway here is that if a weapon is presented in a violent situation there is a significant likelihood that it will be used.

Amongst state prisoners, there was a 68% chance they would use a firearm in the commission of their crime, and a 46% chance they would discharge a round. In 7.1% of cases, the weapon was discharged into the air, and in 21.5% of cases it was not discharged at all. Those are pretty sobering statistics.

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Criminal Demographics and Gun Use

This study also collected age, race, and sociological factors for inmates who used guns during their crime. See the table below.

Many of these stats aren’t particularly surprising. Young, unmarried men, without high school degrees, are the most likely demographic to carry and use firearms.

I don’t think you can make much use of the racial statistics, as they generally are going to show that those living in impoverished areas committed more violent crime. Unfortunately, in the US, many of those impoverished areas are predominantly African American, or Hispanic.

I do think it’s interesting that 18.5% of non US citizens possessed a firearm during the offense that they were serving time for. It should be hardest for this demographic to obtain weapons, as there are very few circumstances where a non resident can obtain a weapon. This leads us to our next topic.

How Do Criminals Obtain Guns?

The vast majority of guns, used in crime, were obtained via black market, and person to person transactions. About a quarter of criminals obtained them from other individuals, or were gifted them by someone else.

Surprisingly, relatively few criminals obtained their weapons from a burglary, and a relatively large amount found them at the location of the crime.

The elephant in the room is the amount of guns purchased from the black market. The inmates reported that 43.2% of their weapons were illegally purchased.

This means that almost half of all guns, used in the commission of a crime, were transferred to the offender illegally, meaning no background check, waiting period, nor magazine limits would apply as the transfer itself was inherently illegal.

Discussion

These statistics are interesting, but we need to put them in context to better understand them. The vast majority of violent crime in the US occurs amongst those that live a criminal lifestyle. In fact, this study showed that the average homicide victim, in Boston, over a four year period, had been criminally charged themselves an average of 12 times prior to their death.

This doesn’t mean that they are good or bad people, or that they are somehow less deserving of justice, but it does mean they were no strangers to crime themselves. As they say, violence begets violence.

That particular study also broke down the circumstances that lead to their death. In total, 66.5% of the situations were gang related, and 15.9% were drug related. Only 13.1% were a personal dispute, with less than 5% between robbery and domestic violence combined.

Now this is only relevant to Boston during the years of 2010-2014, but I would be surprised if Chicago, Baltimore, or other violent areas are much different.

This leads us, inevitably, to the conclusion that reducing violent crime and keeping guns off the streets is best tackled as a multifaceted problem. Making guns extra illegal, or changing their appearance will do nothing to prevent someone from buying a gun illegally and using it to settle a score.

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