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Category Archives: Availability of Guns

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Worth the Wait?

Gun Facts Posted on 2025/07/09 by Editorial Team2025/07/09
Indiana and Non-Waiting Period State Gun Homicide Rates1979 thru 1987

Do waiting periods help or hurt? The answer is “it’s messy,” but in short, they are ineffective. Take-aways Only one of 16 study combinations showed any significant change. On one statistical measure, the effects in the other 15 combinations were likely random. The Claim Advocates claim that waiting periods reduce homicides and suicides. The theory (which, as you will see, is wrong) is that some significant number of murders and suicides occur spontaneously. Advocates proffer that a person who gets angry or depressed goes to a gun store and then murders someone or kills themselves right away. This assumption does not conform with what we know about most gun homicides and suicides.

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Posted in Availability of Guns, Guns and Crime Prevention, Suicides | Tagged handgun purchase waiting periods, waiting periods | Leave a reply

Gun Homicides by Household

Gun Facts Posted on 2025/05/11 by Guy Smith2025/06/12
Breakdown of gun homicides 2022

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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Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns | Tagged crime guns, gun homicides | Leave a reply

Rust Pipeline

Gun Facts Posted on 2023/04/29 by Guy Smith2023/05/09
Imported Traced Crime Guns from Neighboring States - 2019

There is no “iron pipeline” of guns trafficked from low gun control states to high ones. There is a rust pipeline of legally migrating guns mainly between neighboring states. Take-aways Most crime guns are retailed in the state where they were recovered, including in high gun control states. Most intrastate guns come from neighboring states, including other high gun control states. Most guns legally follow owners when they move between states, which frequently are neighboring states. Approximately 6,000,000 guns at minimum move legally between states each, and of these, 433,000 move between neighboring states Crime guns are largely local One reality is that most crime guns are retailed in the same state where they were recovered. Across all states, 68% of traced guns were retailed in the same state where they were recovered. But there are significant variations. Due to decades of restrictions, Washington, DC (not a state, but worth … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns | Tagged gun trafficking, iron pipeline | 1 Reply

Big Gun Data

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/09/15 by Editorial Team2023/05/09
GUNS AND CRIME PREVENTION - Defensive Gun Uses (DGUs) studies

We normally don’t post a blog entry for a single academic paper, but this one is important because it is the largest well-conducted survey concerning gun ownership and self-defense with guns (as well as other topics) to date. The survey size makes most of the data unassailable, and thus “gold standard.” Take-aways 54,000 people contacted, 16,708 gun owners within that group. Low-side concurrence with other surveys concerning defensive gun use (DGU). New insight into public carry and self-defense, both public and private. Scale data for assault weapons (AR-15s specifically) and magazine capacities more than 10 rounds. Why this paper matters Much of what we know about guns has some limitations:

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Posted in Assault Weapons, Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns, Guns and Crime Prevention | 4 Replies

Culture, Homicides and Violence

Gun Facts Posted on 2022/08/01 by Guy Smith2023/05/09
Culture homicides and violent crime

Who is more likely to shoot you, an NRA member or a member of the Crips? The primary difference between these two groups is culture. NRA members tend to be law-and-order types, whereas Crips (or members of any garden variety American street gang) are rather indifferent or openly hostile to laws. It is the adherence to a social norm – in this case, obeying or not obeying the law – that influences one’s probability to act violently, which in tern means using a gun to commit unilateral violence (e.g., not self-defense). We saw this in one study that details the propensity of people in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods to get and use guns for criminal activities. But what cultural norms influence such behavior? We found a cross-national survey of culture and wanted to see if we could map similarities between nations concerning culture, violence and guns. The Main Take-Aways Gun … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns, Guns in Other Countries | Tagged guns, homicides, international, violent crime | Leave a reply

Guns Not Used in Crime

Gun Facts Posted on 2021/08/24 by Editorial Team2023/05/09
Guns not used in crime - homicides and robberies scaled per repeat offender estimates

What portion of America’s guns are used in crime? Somewhere between 0.00001% and 0.00477%, depending on the type of gun and crime. Take-aways Due to the repeat offenders, some guns get used in multiple gun crimes. Omitting likely crime repetitions, the number of guns in circulation used in crime drops. The combination of all gun types and the two major gun crimes means a mere 0.00477% of the gun supply is being used in crime. Multiple Uses, One Gun For years people have been taking estimates of the number of guns in public hands and dividing that into the number of gun crimes committed each year, to get a rough guess as to whether being “awash” in guns creates a problem. Typically, these rough takes estimate that less than 1% of guns are used in a crime any year. The problem is that this is a radical over-estimate. We know … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns | 5 Replies

Incarceration, Handguns and Homicides

Gun Facts Posted on 2021/07/11 by Editorial Team2024/01/02
Incarceration rates, handgun supply, and homicide rates 1978 thru 2016 along with habitual offeder laws passages.

“The homicide rate is going up because there are more guns!” That was a hysterical statement made by a talking head on a television news network. Sadly, this fellow is considered to be a journalist by people who evidently don’t own dictionaries or know of Edward R. Murrow. At the Gun Facts project, we pour through so much data that recognizing low grade equine effluvium, such as the statement above, is second nature for us. Yet our joy in life is converting hard numbers into knowledge and perspective so that people with high intellects (that would be you, kind reader) will see through such comical statements as what the nightly news anchor uttered. The basic take-away Starting in the early 1990s, after two decades of steadily rising violent crime rates, all forms of crime started dropping. This includes homicides. But after 1993 (more on that in a moment), while the … Continue reading →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns, Crime Control | 4 Replies

Crime Leads Gun Buying

Gun Facts Posted on 2021/06/11 by Guy Smith2023/05/09

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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Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns | Tagged crime guns, gun sales, NICS | 3 Replies

Background Checks and Homicides

Gun Facts Posted on 2021/04/20 by Editorial Team2023/05/09
Background Checks and Homicides by State, 2017

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 →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns, States | 5 Replies

Ghost Gun Gong Show

Gun Facts Posted on 2021/04/03 by Guy Smith2023/05/09
List of cities with the most ghost guns as a percent of crime guns

“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 →

Posted in Availability of Guns, Crime and Guns | Tagged diy guns, ghost guns | 3 Replies

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