Tag Archives: crime guns

Gun Homicides by Household

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How many household guns are used in homicides? Nearly none. Takeaways Aside from career crimes and gang related activities, 0.004% of households with guns are involved in gun homicides. What Started This Analysis A podcast interviewer sent me a set of questions with which to prep, and he asked about private gun ownership and crime in a way I had not seen phrased before. Given some advances in data and insights into gun homicides, I felt the open question needed to be addressed. The core question was: “Outside of intentional or spontaneous criminal activities (gangs, robberies, burglaries, aggravated assaults, etc.) what percentage of private gun owners committed a gun homicide?”

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Stolen Guns

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One way criminals gets guns is to steal them, or to buy guns from gun thieves. The question is if this is a major source of crime guns, and where is the leakage occurring? The answers are serious though the data is convoluted. Takeaways A net 154,746 guns (stolen minus recovered) enter the underground in a year. They are overwhelmingly taken from civilians. Most disappear from vehicles, not homes. Public carry is not a predictor of gun theft rates, but the adult population is. Gun theft rates are not covariant with gun homicide rates. A crabby note about data Data quality is the bane of research, and data quality on this issue is inconsistent. We’ll include rants about data as we explain our findings, but for starters, we’ll note that snapshot data (i.e., a one-year picture) is divorced from long-term data, and the long-term data required us to triangulate factors. … Continue reading →

Tracking Transgressors

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In a perfect world, a gun would tell you who used it in a crime … over and over again. Such is the stuff of science fiction. Gun serial numbers really don’t help (more on that later). But one program and set of sciences is helping to expose repeat offenders and maybe get serious bad actors off the streets. Take Aways 96% of guns recovered in crime are linked to one or more additional cases. 83% of guns were used in two or more crimes. These statistics may be low due to staffing problems in forensic labs. Repeat offenders and guns We know from decades of criminology and some indirect evidence that among the criminal class, there are some super predators who repeatedly misuse guns. Ignore for the moment perps like ATM muggers and liquor store bandits who rarely fire their guns at anyone (instead, the gun is used as … Continue reading →

Crime Leads Gun Buying

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Which came first, the crime or the guns? Statistically, crime rates appear to precede gun sales … and for some obvious reasons. Main take-aways In 29% of states, there is a significant correlation between firearm homicides and gun sales. In the top half of states, per raw correlations, 85% have firearm homicides preceding gun sales. Lead/lag times of one to three years shows 22–28% of states having crime leading gun sales, and between 6-11% of states having gun sales leading crime. The Basic Debate The basic debate surrounding whether gun sales lead to gun crimes is kinda stupid.

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