Are Gun Crimes Done With Registered Or Unregistered Guns
Relationship between licensing, registration, and other gun sales laws and the source country of crime guns
Abstruse
Objective—To determine the association between licensing and registration of firearm sales and an indicator of gun availability to criminals.
Methods—Tracing data on all criminal offense guns recovered in 25 cities in the United States were used to estimate the relationship between state gun law categories and the proportion of crime guns first sold by in-country gun dealers.
Results—In cities located in states with both mandatory registration and licensing systems (5 cities), a mean of 33.7% of crime guns were offset sold by in-country gun dealers, compared with 72.seven% in cities that had either registration or licensing just not both (seven cities), and 84.two% in cities without registration or licensing (13 cites). Little of the departure between cities with both licensing and registration and cities with neither licensing nor registration was explained past potential confounders. The share of the population near a city that resides in a neighboring state without licensing or registration laws was negatively associated with the consequence.
Conclusion—States with registration and licensing systems appear to do a better job than other states of keeping guns initially sold within the country from being recovered in crimes. Proximity to states without these laws, however, may limit their touch.
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There is general consensus among scientists that firearm availability is positively associated with homicide risks1; assaults with firearms are, on average, much more lethal than assaults with other mutual weapons.2 Nevertheless, there is much less agreement about the effectiveness of government efforts to control firearm availability. Skeptics of gun control laws argue that criminals tin easily evade regulations by acquiring guns through theft, straw purchases (those by legally eligible purchasers on behalf of individuals legally proscribed from purchasing guns), and other hard-to-regulate private sales.three, 4 Melt and colleagues contend that restrictions on legal gun sales tin reduce the supply and consequently raise the price of acquiring guns within illicit also every bit licit gun markets. Restricted supplies and increased prices may reduce gun availability within these interconnected markets.5, 6
In the United States, federal law proscribes gun sales to specific groups deemed to exist potentially dangerous, such as persons convicted of serious crimes, and requires criminal background checks of persons buying guns from licensed dealers. But in many states this requirement is fulfilled via "instant cheque" procedures vulnerable to the use of falsified identification cards and straw purchasers.vii Some states in the United States, however, take much more extensive regulatory systems that include registration of firearms, licensing of buyers, and very restrictive eligibility criteria for firearm purchases.
Permit-to-purchase licensing systems require prospective gun purchasers to have directly contact with police enforcement or judicial authorities that scrutinize purchase applications, and some allow these agencies broad discretion to disapprove applications. Some licensing laws require applicants to exist fingerprinted and allow officials weeks or even months to conduct extensive background checks. Mandatory registration makes it easier to trace guns used in crime to their last known legal owner, and to investigate possible illegal transfers. In combination, these laws have the potential to significantly restrict gun conquering by high risk individuals through stricter eligibility criteria, safeguards against falsified applications, and increased legal risks and costs associated with illegal gun transfers to proscribed individuals. Recently, several United States gun command groups accept fabricated licensing of buyers and registration of handguns the centerpiece of their advocacy agenda.
Nearly industrialized countries place broad restrictions on private ownership of firearms.8, 9 For example, Canada created a centralized registry for purchased handguns in 1951, and instituted very restrictive allow-to-buy requirements for handguns in 1969. These restrictions were expanded to long guns in 1977.eight Evaluations of the 1977 law were mixed, simply suggested that the law was associated with a reduction in homicides.10– 12 In a cross sectional written report of gun command laws in the United States, Kleck and Patterson besides present mixed evidence that permit-to-buy laws were associated with lower rates of homicide.13
With few exceptions,xiv, fifteen previous evaluations of country gun sales laws have not examined the state in which the guns used to commit violence were sold. This report addresses this gap by examining whether states with licensing, registration, and other gun sales regulations have proportionately fewer of their crime guns that were originally purchased from within the state. Having a low proportion of crime guns with in-state origins would suggest that guns are relatively difficult for persons at hazard for criminal involvement to obtain from in-country gun dealers, acquaintances, or homes that are burglarized. Interstate gun traffickers offer an alternative source of guns to criminals in states with restrictive gun laws, however the costs, risks, and inconvenience are likely to be greater. These added costs might curtail access to guns among high risk individuals5, six and consequently reduce rates of lethal violence.2, sixteen
Methods
Study SAMPLE AND Information
This study uses city level data for 27 cities located in 23 states that have participated in a federally funded programme called the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII). Each of these cities agreed to submit data on all criminal offence guns recovered by local police enforcement agencies to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for tracing. (Despite its name, the YCGII was non limited to guns recovered from youth.) In nearly other jurisdictions, police but attempt to trace a not-random sample of the crime guns they recover, creating the possibility for pick bias.17 A offense gun was defined by ATF equally any firearm that was "illegally possessed, used in a criminal offense, or suspected to have been used in a crime."18
Data were available for all 27 cities for all crime guns recovered past police from 1 August 1997 though 31 July 1998.18 For 17 of the 27 cities, data were also available for guns recovered from 1 July 1996 through 30 April 1997.nineteen To increase the reliability and sample size of our analyses, nosotros combined information from the two reporting periods for those cities where it was available. Due to limited resources and the difficulty of tracing older guns, ATF did not e'er attempt to consummate traces for guns that were manufactured before 1990. Therefore, in order to written report a sample of crime guns that were comprehensively traced, we limited our analyses to recovered criminal offense guns that were sold during or after one January 1990. With one exception, discussed beneath, all of the country licensing and registration laws of interest went into effect well before 1990.
Proportion of criminal offence guns from in-state gun dealers
Our main consequence mensurate is the proportion of traceable crime guns that were originally purchased from an in-state gun dealer. In our data, this outcome measure was positively correlated with another indicator of gun availability to loftier risk individuals—the proportion of homicides of males ages xv and higher up that were committed with guns (Pearson'southward r = 0.40, p=0.048).
State gun sales laws
Our primary explanatory variable of involvement is the set of state level firearm sales laws. Information about these laws was obtained from ATF and The states Section of Justice publications,twenty, 21 and through legal enquiry. Two key laws of involvement were let-to-buy licensing of firearm buyers and registration of firearms. Based on these laws, we grouped all states into three categories. In category A, we grouped states with both permit-to-purchase licensing and registration. Category B consisted of states with either licensing or registration (only not both). Category C groups those states with neither permit-to-purchase licensing nor registration.
Though our categorization was based on licensing and registration laws, states with both of these laws ofttimes have many additional firearm sales restrictions that could enhance the effectiveness of their gun regulatory system (run into table one). For example, states with permit-to-purchase laws often crave relatively long maximum waiting periods and prohibit gun sales to persons convicted of sure misdemeanor crimes. In addition, states with both licensing and registration typically allowed criminal justice agencies to utilize discretion in issuing permits.
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Table 1
State gun sales laws in event in 25 Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative cities, overall nomenclature of the prepare of these laws, and the percentage of the urban center'southward crime guns that were first purchased from in-country gun dealers
There was simply one land with a alter in its gun sales laws from 1 Jan 1990 though 31 July 1998 that would change its category. Connecticut enacted its let-to-purchase licensing and registration system starting time 1 October 1994; but permits for handgun sales were not mandatory until 1 October 1995. Earlier Connecticut'due south new constabulary, Bridgeport (1 of the YCGII cities) would have been placed in category C; after the law, information technology would be grouped in category A. Therefore, we excluded Bridgeport from our chief analyses. Instead, we conducted a dissever assay comparison the source country of Bridgeport's crime guns outset purchased before and after its regulatory system became available in October 1994, and contrasted this pre-constabulary versus post-police force difference with other cities in category C. We chose the 1994 engagement because it was the earliest appointment after which handgun buyers were obtaining permits.
We also excluded Washington, DC from our primary analysis. In 1976, the District of Columbia banned well-nigh handgun possession and buy. Therefore, its laws are not truly comparable to the other states nosotros examined.
Potential confounders
Factors other than gun sales laws, such as proximity to persons living in other states, may also affect the source land of a city's criminal offense guns. The following hypothesized determinants of the proportion of a city'southward crime guns originating from in-state gun dealers, in addition to gun sales laws, were considered in the analyses: (one) nearest driving distance from the metropolis of involvement to another state in category C, (2) the ratio of out-of-country to in-state population inside a 50 or 100 mile radius of the city, (3) the proportion of the population within a 50 or 100 mile radius of the city that reside in a state in category C, (iv) the proportion of the country'due south population that had moved from another country within the previous year,22 and (5) the proportion of a metropolis's criminal offence guns that were recovered in cases involving drug crimes (illicit drug selling networks oft extend across state borders).
Differences in gun ownership between states, attributable to cultural and demographic differences, may be an important determinant of whether restrictive gun sales laws are passed in a land. Lower levels of gun ownership within a state that are independent of the effects of those restrictive laws that are not controlled for in our analysis could bias our estimates of the laws' furnishings. Controlling for pre-police gun buying levels is somewhat problematic, however, considering direct measures of state level gun ownership are not available and the implementation dates of the laws differ across states. Therefore, we used the per cent of a state's suicides during 1996–97 that were committed with firearms as a proxy measure out of gun ownership based on the rationale that this fraction volition exist strongly influenced by gun availability.23 This mensurate, however, may underestimate the level of pre-law gun ownership not attributable to restrictive gun laws in states that after passed such restrictions considering the laws may have depressed gun ownership levels in the effected states. If this is the instance, this control variable may overcorrect the judge of the laws' effects. We, therefore, included this covariate in a sensitivity analysis to provide a lower bound signal approximate of the laws' effects.
Population data were obtained from the Us census,24 and the population residing inside a fifty and 100 mile radius of the center of each city was adamant using the Demography' Chief Area Cake Level Equivalency program.25 Driving distances from central city locations to the borders of other states were determined using Map Expert 2.0 figurer mapping software.26
Information Assay
Assay of variance of the hateful proportion of crime guns originating in-state was used for comparisons beyond the three categories of gun sales laws. Dunnet's C statistic was used to compare between group ways with unequal variances.27 Ordinary least squares linear regression analysis was used to approximate the independent clan betwixt the hypothesized explanatory variables and the outcome. Theoretically relevant covariates were dropped from the model if their furnishings were not statistically significant and if their exclusion did non appear to influence the other estimates. Melt's distance28 and the standardized difference in the beta values were examined to assess whether detail observations exerted undue influence on the regression coefficients.
Results
For the 25 cities in our assay, 108 000 crime guns were recovered by the police during the study period. Because we limit our analysis to criminal offense guns first purchased since 1990, to calculate the proportion of guns in our dataset successfully traced to a source state, it is first necessary to eliminate from the denominator those guns bought before 1990. Using data on the sales dates and ATF'due south reasons for non completing a trace, nosotros estimated that sixty 202 guns were first purchased before 1990. Of the remaining 47 798 guns, 35 000 (73.ii%) were successfully traced by ATF to a source country.
Table 1 depicts the categorization of the 25 YCGII cities based upon their gun sales laws. In general, the categories are ordered by the comprehensiveness of the laws. The hateful percentage of criminal offence guns with in-state origins for category A cities (33.7%) was significantly less than that for cities in category B (72.7%) and category C (84.ii%) (both differences meaning at p<0.001; see fig i). Credible in fig 1 and confirmed by a formal test (Levene statistic = 8.58, df1=two, df2=22, p=0.002) is that the variance in the outcome measure among the five cities in category A is larger than in categories B and C.
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Figure 1
Mean and 95% confidence interval for the percentage of offense guns first sold by in-country gun dealers past gun constabulary category. Category A: licensing and permit to purchase and at least 2 other gun sales laws; category B: licensing or permit to purchase but not both; category C: neither licensing or permit to purchase.
The regression analyses indicated that the large bivariate differences betwixt cities in category A and those in categories B and C remained afterward controlling for potential confounders (table ii). The estimates from model 1 indicate that the percentage of crime guns with in-state origins was 48.5 percent points lower in category A cities compared with category C cities (p<0.001). The per centum of crime guns with in-state origins in category B cities was 12.8 percentage points lower than in category C cities (p=0.039). The percentage of the population within a 100 mile radius of a urban center that resided beyond the land border in a category C state was negatively associated with the percentage of crime guns with in-state origins (β = −nineteen.9, SE(β) = 7.five, p=0.016).
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Table 2
Results from ordinary least squares regression on the percentage of a metropolis'due south criminal offense guns that were originally purchased from in-country gun dealers
Key points
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Merely a few states in the The states require firearm owners to be licensed and their guns to be registered.
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The proportion of a city's offense guns that come from in-country, verus out-of-state, is an important measure out of how hard it is for criminals to get guns in those states.
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Cities in states with both licensing and registration have a much smaller proportion of their crimes guns coming from in-state.
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Licensing and registration laws tin can make it harder for criminals and juveniles to get guns.
Model 2 in tabular array 2 presents our findings with the surrogate measure of gun ownership inside the land added to the model. This indicator of gun ownership was positively associated with the percentage of law-breaking guns that had been sold by in-state gun dealers (β = 0.682, SE(β) = 0.180, p=0.001). The magnitude of the estimate for the difference betwixt category A and category C cities was reduced (β = −37.1, SE(β) = 5.88, p<0.001) merely remained large and highly significant. Nevertheless, the approximate for the departure betwixt category B versus category C cities was reduced substantially and is no longer statistically significant (β = −4.25, SE(β) = 4.95, p=0.402).
Population migration into the state and the proportion of recovered guns associated with drug offenses were not significantly associated with the proportion of a city'southward crime guns first sold by an in-state gun dealer. Driving altitude from the urban center to the nearest country edge and distance to the nearest state with weaker gun sales laws were not included in the models due to colinearity with other covariates. The proportion of total population inside a fifty mile radius of the city residing exterior the land border was not included in the models considering its inclusion lead to an extremely large Melt's altitude statistic for i city. This covariate did not have a statistically pregnant issue on the outcome measure, and its exclusion from the models did not substantially effect the gun law estimates.
The percentage of Bridgeport's offense guns that had been sold by in-state dealers decreased from 84.nine% (124/146) for guns purchased before Connecticut'south licensing and registration laws went into effect to 81.5% (44/54) for guns purchased later. In dissimilarity, amidst the other category C cities, the proportion of offense guns with in-country origins increased from 79.viii% (6289/7883) to 87.9% (6798/7732) for guns sold during the same two time periods. While these divergent trends are suggestive of moderate effects from Connecticut's mandatory licensing and registration police, the 81.5% of Bridgeport's crime guns that had been sold by in-land dealers after the law's effective engagement was significantly higher than was observed in the 5 other category A cities.
Word
We found great variation among cities in the percentage of their crime guns that originated from in-state gun dealers. This variation was largely explained by the presence or absence of comprehensive state regulations of gun sales that fit our definition of category A—permit-to-purchase licensing and mandatory registration of handguns—and to a lesser degree past proximity to people in states with minimal restrictions on gun sales. After adjusting for confounders, the per centum of crime guns recovered in cities in category A that had been purchased from in-state dealers was less than half as high every bit would take been expected if the weakest country laws (category C) had been in outcome.
The wide variation in the proportion of crime guns from in-land dealers within category A suggests that there are of import determinants of our outcome other than the presence of licensing and registration systems. Some of the variance within this category appears to be explained by complementary sales restrictions. Category A cities with the lowest proportion of their crime guns originating from in-state dealers—Boston, Bailiwick of jersey City, and New York—were in states that also allowed police force enforcement discretion in issuing permits to purchase handguns, had longer waiting periods, and required purchase applicants to be fingerprinted. In dissimilarity, St Louis, Missouri, with the highest proportion of criminal offense guns sold by in-land gun dealers among category A cities, had none of these provisions.
The very potent cross sectional association betwixt let-to-buy licensing and registration laws, and lower proportions of crime guns with in-state origins, is tempered somewhat by the modest change observed in Bridgeport afterwards Connecticut adopted a licensing and registration system. This relatively modest change in Bridgeport may exist due to the newness of law, the availability of older used guns purchased within the land prior to the new constabulary, or to the lack of some of the other sales restrictions mentioned higher up that have been in identify for years in other states with licensing and registration systems. In addition, our apply of the engagement the licensing and registration system became operational as the intervention point rather than the appointment, 12 months later, on which these regulations became mandatory may take created a conservative bias in our findings of the constabulary's issue.
Interestingly, subsequently adjusting for gun ownership as well every bit other potential confounders, in that location was no pregnant deviation between cities in categories B and C in the proportion of their crime guns that had originated from in-land gun dealers. This finding suggests that land level gun command measures may not accept a substantial impact on criminal gun availability unless the measures are very comprehensive, including both licensing, registration and other restrictions.
The potential benefits from comprehensive country gun control measures appear to exist macerated by the lack of such controls in other states. Consistent with other inquiry,eighteen, 19, 29 proximity to people living in states with weak gun laws increased the proportion of a city's criminal offence guns originating from out-of-state gun dealers.
There are several potential limitations to this written report. Kickoff, our consequence measure may seem somewhat removed from the most of import public health outcomes such as homicides. However, there is full general consensus among scholars that reduced access to guns amid high take a chance individuals is likely to atomic number 82 to reduced rates of lethal violence,ane and the proportion of crime guns that originate from in-state gun dealers should be direct related to how piece of cake it is for loftier risk individuals to obtain guns. Indeed, nosotros plant that the proportion of a city's offense guns that had been sold past an in-state gun dealer was positively associated with some other indicator of gun availability to loftier hazard individuals, the proportion of homicides of males ages fifteen and above that were committed with firearms.
Criminals and delinquent youth tend to obtain guns in individual transactions with acquaintances and to a lesser degree from thefts.29, 30 Although these transactions are difficult to regulate directly, laws that restrict legal gun buying and gun transfers such as licensing and registration could constrain the supply of guns from these typical sources of criminal offense guns.5 With fewer guns from local sources, criminals and juveniles must place out-of-state sources. But interstate traffickers face barriers and risks that may limit their ability to make upward for significant in-state supply restrictions. Perhaps as a result of these supply constraints, street prices of guns in places with very restrictive gun control laws tend to be significantly higher than in places with more lax laws.5
Omission or inadequate measurement of confounders is e'er a potential limitation in evaluations of gun policies. By focusing on the furnishings of land gun sales law on the proportion of criminal offence guns originating from in-state gun dealers, all the same, the findings from this study may be less vulnerable to sure threats to validity that can bias gun control evaluations that focus on the laws' effects on vehement criminal offense. Tearing criminal offence is influenced by a big number of factors, many of which are difficult to measure adequately. In contrast, in that location are probable to be many fewer unmeasured factors that affect the proportion of crime guns from in-state gun dealers—our final models explained 82% and 89% of the variance in this effect.
The relatively pocket-size, non-random sample of cities, selected by ATF for their willingness to submit data on all crime guns recovered by law, limits the generalizabililty of the findings. Nonetheless, the cities in this study are diverse with respect to region and population size, and appear to exist representative of their states based on the very loftier correlation between the cities' and states' measures of our event variable (r = 0.97, p<0.001).
Kleck has suggested that police force in states with firearm registries may exist less inclined to asking an ATF trace of a crime gun that is registered inside the land because much of the information from the ATF trace may be obtainable from the state registry.17 If pervasive within YCGII cities, such practices could bias our findings. However, the police departments that submitted information for this report agreed to submit data to ATF on all recovered criminal offence guns. ATF devoted considerable resources to assistance local agencies making trace requests and to oversee the drove of data. ATF officials working on the YCGII indicate that the protocols for initiating ATF trace requests used by the participating police departments were generally independent from other police investigations, whether or non a state had a registration system. Furthermore, the proportion of offense guns sold by in-country dealers when the state had a registration system but no allow-to-buy licensing system (v of the seven cities in category B) was quite high (67%–82%) indicating that the agencies were clearly submitting information to ATF for guns that should also be in the state registry.
Our analyses were limited to guns sold less than years years before recovery by the law because ATF did not trace all crime guns manufactured before 1990. Associations between state gun laws and in-state origins of criminal offence guns may differ for older versus newer guns. Any differences between older and newer guns, withal, would have to be quite substantial to negate the very big magnitude of upshot for category A state laws.
Finally, the way we choose to categorize land gun sales laws limits our ability to judge of the contained effects of each of type of regulation of involvement. Due to the high correlation between the presence of many of the laws we considered, preliminary analyses revealed substantial multicolinearity when nosotros attempted to generated separate estimates for each law of involvement.
Implications for prevention
Understanding the benefits of restrictive firearm sales laws tin aid policymakers to make informed legislative choices. Our findings suggest that comprehensive gun sales regulations that include let-to-buy licensing and registration can affect the availability of guns to criminals. Conversely, the absence of these regulations may increase the availability of guns to criminals in nearby states.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported past grant R49/CCR3028 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Johns Hopkins Middle for Injury Research and Policy.
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