Category Archives: Availability of Guns

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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Background Checks and Homicides

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If retail gun purchase background checks are any indication, sales of guns may keep some crime down. Backgrounds Checked The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) recently released a report on background checks. Though not every state was covered, the 40 reported gives of an unexpected view into homicides and recent gun sales. But before we dive in, here is the list of caveats: Only looks at 2016/7 data, so a snapshot in time. Gun sales may lag behind changes in local violence, so there is an unspecified lead/lag issue. Since the BJS also tells us that a minimum of 40% of crime guns come from street sources (not subject to background checks), looking at retail checks and crime might produce weak results anyway. Up, Up and Away Between 1999 and 2017, the U.S. population rose 16% while the number of background checks for gun purchases rose 99%. Clearly, America has … Continue reading →

Ghost Gun Gong Show

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“Criminals are taking advantage of this loophole to obtain guns that are later used in crimes.” In California, perhaps. Elsewhere “ghost guns” are the “assault weapon” for the new millennium… rarely used, marginally worrisome, and perhaps a byproduct of strict gun control laws. The Summary Data Worst case, 1.7% of crime guns are DIY (e.g., “ghost guns”). But when the top six outlier cities (all in California) are excluded, the rate drops to 1.1%. 34% of agencies recovered no ghost guns. This compares to 8% of crime guns that have no visible serial numbers (obliterated + DIY). California is the primary state having DIY guns in circulation, averaging 8% of crime guns. What We Did to Tally DIY Guns used in crime We sent public records requests to the top 100 police agencies in the United States and asked them to tell us for 2019: How many crime guns were … Continue reading →

Gun Ownership RANDomness

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The Rand Corporation does a lot of interesting stuff. So, when they studied household gun ownership rates, we at the Gun Facts project took note. And we sadly note that this is not Rand’s finest work. It really isn’t even presentable. Normally we try not to go too deep into minutiae on the Gun Facts blog, mainly reserving it for more groundbreaking observations (such as when we untangled the “cattle pen scenario” element of mass public shootings or dove deep into what, if any, impact “high capacity magazines” had). But today, we will have to guide you through some perspective on gun ownership rates and show how Rand seems to have muddied the political waters. Why we need to know state-level gun ownership rates The lack of perfect knowledge about household gun ownership rates by state has annoyed criminologists and social scientist for decades. Since most American states do not … Continue reading →

Suppressed Perspective

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“He had a suppressor? That’s unique.” This was from a Gun Facts fan email during the breaking news cycle of the mass public shooting in Virginia Beach. The point being made was that by his reckoning, firearm suppressors were not often used in mass public shootings (MPSs). Fact is, they are not used in crimes much at all, which makes the desire of some politicos to ban suppressors an amusing example of uninformed policy pontification. Major Takeaways BATF traced 97 suppressors in all of 2016. This is 0.01% of those in circulation. Suppressors are ignored by criminals for the same reasons they rarely use derringers or machineguns. What the BATF Tracked We used 2016 for this review of suppressors for the reason that it is recent, we could get other crime data easily, and it skipped 2017 when there was a mass BATF trace of suppressors recovered in one state, … Continue reading →

Red Flags

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Are red flag laws effective, or should politicians be flagged for being offsides? Take-aways Too few data points for statistical robustness Largely irrelevant to homicides Barely effective on suicides For suicides, “studies” thus far count only “firearm deaths” instead of all forms of suicides, which is a grave methodology error Trade-off between a few lives saved and significant due process questions is out of balance Wave Your Flag “Red Flag Laws” (RFL herein) are all the rage these days, with many states enacting or considering them. However, the relative newness of RFLs makes analyzing their effectiveness a little tricky. Before 2016, only two states – Connecticut and Indiana – had RFLs. To see before-and-after effects of any law, you need a little runway (we at the Gun Facts project think ±5 years is sufficient). Most states with RFLs have less than three years of experience with these laws. So, with … Continue reading →

Traces of a Con

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“There are more gun stores in America than Starbucks and McDonalds combined.” This was a headline from a propaganda organization within the gun control movement. As with any wild-sounding claim from either camp, the Gun Facts project took interest. A bit of data chasing and number crunching shows that the claim is marginally accurate yet totally misleading. But what else would one expect from The Trace. Major Take-aways There are even wilder and less accurate store-vs-store claims floating about than this one. There are approximately 236 more gun stores than the combined total of Starbucks and McDonald’s outlets (28,382 vs 28,146); but that’s if we count pawn shops as “gun stores.” Subtract those (8,002) and the claim gets reversed. In addition, an unknown number of the above “gun stores” are just gunsmiths and not actual retailers. The ratio of gun stores to these two food franchises varies wildly from state … Continue reading →

Tracing Suicides

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The Lie of Fear: Creating a false sense of fear in order to motivate people to action while easing them past critical thinking. This entry, from the book Shooting The Bull, was the very first items in the “Catalog of Canards”, a list of most common propaganda techniques of the modern era. That organizations favoring gun control too often employ the Lie of Fear is regrettably understandable. Which brings us to The Trace and their artless attempt to scare people about suicides: Take-aways Firearm suicides growing much more slowly than overall suicides. Trace chose to start trend analysis during a low-point in firearm suicides. The interesting angle Depending on the year you examine, firearm suicides constitute about 60-66% of firearm deaths in the United States. For decades gun control advocacy groups (which, charitably stated, The Trace is one, given the legendary activist donors on their disclosure page and that Michael … Continue reading →

AR-15s: Mostly Harmless

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The AR-15, allegedly the most popular consumer rifle in the United States, has become the poster child of the gun control industry. But from a homicide statistics standpoint, they are mostly harmless. Main Take-aways AR-15s constitute maybe 4% of all American firearms. AR-15s are used in 0.4% of firearm homicides, maximum. Just How Many AR-15s Are We Talking About? There is no doubt the AR-15 is a popular rifle. The firearm industry notes this. Users note this. Even the gun control industry notes this. Knowing how many are out there is crucial for understanding if they are a problem or not. The AR-15 has been around since 1959, but the last eight years has seen a significant increase in its popularity. And no wonder. The rifle is lightweight, meaning anyone can shoot it (YouTube has a bunch of videos of tiny young girls firing them). They don’t recoil much due … Continue reading →

Gun Deaths: Meaningless Metric

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You can get an average citizen to cross their eyes in brain damaging confusion by telling them that “gun deaths” is a meaningless statistic. And it is, though members of the gun control industry continue to use the hollow phrase, and some members of the media never question its meaning or validity. It doesn’t stand up to domestic or international scrutiny. Since it is the job of the Gun Facts project to eradicate bad information, let’s spend a few electrons today killing off the “gun deaths” charade. What in the heck is a “gun death”? This is not a caustic question. In the realm of people dying by catching bullets, there are a number of categories concerning such deaths. And many of these categories are made up of sub categories. And for each of the categories, there are ways of achieving the same result (a dead person) without a using … Continue reading →