Gun control advocates routinely claim that increasing the burdens to lawfully purchase a firearm will somehow reduce the use of firearms in criminal activities. Gun rights advocates buck such claims, noting that criminals aren’t the kind of people who are inclined to follow the law in the first place. Yet, gun grabbers persist in their claims that more gun laws will somehow stop crime.
With that in mind, it seems unlikely that a new report regarding gun crime in Chicago will dissuade them.
The report, a collaboration between Chicago police, the office of the mayor and the University of Chicago Crime Lab, found that 10 dealers sold almost a quarter of the guns that were recovered at crime scenes between 2013 and 2016. About 60% of guns used in city crimes were traced to dealers outside the state, with more than 20% from Indiana.
In 95% of cases where the Chicago police were able to identify the possessor of crime gun, that individual was “not the original, lawful purchaser of the firearm” based upon the federal record at the initial point of purchase, the report said. Crime guns include all firearms recovered by police that were used or suspected to have been used in a crime, as well as any gun that is illegal possessed.
The report highlights the problem of straw purchases, where someone buys a firearm on behalf of another person who cannot make the purchase because of a criminal record or is someone who doesn’t want to be linked to the purchase. Police in Chicago recovered almost 7,000 illegal guns last year, six times the per capita rate in New York and 1.5 times that in Los Angeles.
by Tom Knighton
