What kind of guns do the bad guys carry?

Status
Not open for further replies.

GunnyUSMC

Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2012
Messages
9,142
Location
Denham Springs LA
A lot of people think that the criminals still carry cheap guns, but this is far from the truth. Think of it like this. When you buy a gun for self defense, you most likely buy the best gun you can afford or one that has a good track record of being a dependable firearm.
Now you may go to the range and target shoot or practice, but the chance of you ever using that gun in a real shootout with someone is very slim.
Now when it comes to the criminal, he is most often not trained, but his chance of being in a shooting is pretty high. It may be that he has to use his gun in the course of a crime, defend himself from another criminal, or attack another criminal.
Most of the shootings in the city I work in are drug related. We had right at 100 homicides last year and even more attempt murders. The average victim in shootings is a black male 16 to 26 years of age and the average shooter is a black male 16 to 26 years of age.

Here is a list of the Evidence guns I have test fired this year. And yes, that's less then two months.
380 Auto:
(2) Taurus PT738
(1) Ruger LCP
(1) Kel-Tec P3AT
(2) BERSA Thunder
(1) Jennings Mod.48
(1) Remington RM380
(1) Browning BDA
(1) Hi-Point CF380
(1) Jimenez Arms JA380
(1) S&W M&P Bodyguard

9mm:
(2) S&W SW9VE
(5) S&W SD9VE
(2) S&W M&P Shield
(1) S&W M&P 9C
(1) SCCY CPX-1
(3) SCCY CPX-2
(2) Glock 43
(2) Glock 26
(1) Glock 26 G4
(1) Glock 19
(2) Glock 19 G4
(1) Glock 17
(1) Glock 22 RTF
(3) Taurus PT111 G2
(3) Taurus G2C
(1) Taurus 709 Slim
(1) Springfield XD Mod.2 4.0
(2) Springfield XD9 sub Compact
(1) Ruger SR9c
(1) Ruger LC9
(1) Ruger P89
(1) Kel-Tec P-11
(1) Beretta 92FS
(1) KAHR CM9
(1) BERSA PP9CC
(1) Kel-Tec Sub 2000 9mm

40 S&W:
(3) S&W SD40VE
(1) S&W SD40
(2) S&W SW40VE
(1) Walther PPS
(2) Glock 23 G4
(4) Glock 23
(3) Glock 22
(1) Glock 22 G4
(1) Taurus PT140
(1) Taurus PT840
(1) Sig P250
(1) Springfield XD40
(1) Hi-Point JCP

45 Auto:
(1) TaurusPT24/7
(1) TaurusPT24/7 G2
(1) Taurus PT1911
(1) Glock 41 G4
(1) Springfiels XD Compact 3.8
(1) Ruger P345
(1) Hi-Point JHP

7.62x39:
(1) Romaian WASR-10
(1) Romarm DRACO
(1) NORINCO SKS
 
How many of those were stolen vs bought legally by the person using the gun to commit a crime?

Thanks for sharing Gunny
Seems that bad guys aren't too fond of revolvers.
"Like GAF said, how many were stolen"? Curious to know the answer.
 
Interesting lack of HiPoints. Im sure it hurts your street cred when you flash one......

I would venture that very few were bought legally by the shooter, as the average participents in drug related gang shootings are already felons. Most are probably stolen, or purchased legally through third parties before being delt to the gangsters.
 
In my completely unprofessional binge watching of The First 48 and Live PD, the S&W SD variants seem to be by far the most common I see.

Followed by old Rugers and Taurus.

It does seem like your numbers fit this trend as well. It is fascinating.
 
Gunny, what physical condition we're most of these guns in?

I would expect them to be battered and bruised. Taped up grips, no oil, and the barrels full of fouling, even though it would serve the bad guys well to make sure their guns were tip top as much chance as they have to actually use them in a life or death situation.

Just curious?
 
Very interesting. "My" bad guys (where I worked until several years ago) carried mostly:
AK47/AKM, from about every country that makes them
RPK
PKM machineguns
RPG 7's
Occasionally Tokarev or Makarov pistols
S&W Sigmas (provided by the afghan police; but many bad guys hold "dual membership" in both clubs
82 mm mortars
Anything that exploded (grenades, AT mines, AP mines, arty shells, 107 rockets, fertilizer bombs, PE3A/Pakistani C4, other explosives)
Found, but rarely used:
SKS
PPSH41
STEN
Enfields
Mosins
RPD
RPG 2
Lately, the guys have been finding some of these, provided by afg security forces (and dual members):
M16A2
Occasionally M4
M249 SAW
Our "bad guy weapons" are bigger than the ones here in the US, but at least we get to carry much bigger ones and we get to go home after a few months unlike the police in the US who have to deal with this every day.
 
Thanks for sharing Gunny
Seems that bad guys aren't too fond of revolvers.
"Like GAF said, how many were stolen"? Curious to know the answer.
I'm the NIBIN Examiner for my Dept.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/national-integrated-ballistic-information-network-nibin
I don't get the revolvers because 99.9% of the time there are no cartridge cases left at the crime scene. So there is no data base to compare revolver cartridge cases to.
We do pick up a good many revolvers, but nowhere close to the number of semiautomatic.
We do recover a lot of stolen guns. About 10 to 20% of the guns we pick up have been reported stolen.
More bad guys use 9mm. More than the 40s&w and 45acp combined.

9x19 wins again!
Sorta.....
In the last three years we have been seeing more 9mm's. Back in 2012 40 was the king. Every once in a while we see a spike in 45 auto.
In my completely unprofessional binge watching of The First 48 and Live PD, the S&W SD variants seem to be by far the most common I see.

Followed by old Rugers and Taurus.

It does seem like your numbers fit this trend as well. It is fascinating.
The S&W SW and SD series of guns are very popular. They are the most common gun found in police evidence. There are two reasons why. Number one is cost. A new SD9VE can be bought for under $350. And second,it functions like a Glock. Sometimes refereed to as the poor mans Glock.
Interesting lack of HiPoints. Im sure it hurts your street cred when you flash one......

I would venture that very few were bought legally by the shooter, as the average participents in drug related gang shootings are already felons. Most are probably stolen, or purchased legally through third parties before being delt to the gangsters.
They just find someone to buy guns for them. Most often they have a girlfriend buy it.
Not long ago we had close to 10 guns that were traced back to one woman. She was buying gun for the thugs. I don't think ATF ever went after her.
Gunny, what physical condition we're most of these guns in?

I would expect them to be battered and bruised. Taped up grips, no oil, and the barrels full of fouling, even though it would serve the bad guys well to make sure their guns were tip top as much chance as they have to actually use them in a life or death situation.

Just curious?
You would be supersized. Every now and then we get some guns that are in pretty bad shape, but I get more new guns then beat up ones. If you were to go to your local gun store and look at the used autos, that is pretty much what I get. Most are in good to new condition.
 
I knew only good guys carry 1911’s :)
There's one 1911 in the list, a Taurus PT1911. We do see a few 1911. A couple of years ago I had a Clot Combat Commander come across my desk labeled as a Richard 1911. It ended up being a stolen gun that belonged to Maj. Gen R.J. Richard USMC. His name and rank was engraved on the left side of the slide. I searched our report system and found the report where it was stolen two months before but the SN# was nuknown. I personally contacted the General and he was able to get his gun back about a year latter once the court case was done.
No .22 or .32?
They are very seldom used around here so they don't get put into the system.
 
Very interesting. It doesn't surprise me the S&W autos are well represented. I expected to see a high number of the Taurus and Sccy guns as well. I will say I expected the older gen of Ruger autos to have a much higher number in the count. I guess they fell out of favor. Maybe because they were kinda big and bulky, not favorable for putting in your waist.
 
I personally contacted the General and he was able to get his gun back about a year latter once the court case was done.
Every now and then it's nice when the rightful owner gets their stolen property back. The demographics you posted earlier read just about the same here as to shootings.

Ron
 
I wouldn't call those "cheap" guns, but that's definitely a list of guns that looks like "minimum acceptable quality" guns for the most part. Key word there being acceptable. There are lower quality guns, but most knowledgeable people wouldn't consider them to be acceptable for their purposes. Those are mostly guns built/designed to a price point.

Overall, I think it shows that most criminals in your area are being economically rational. They are spending enough money to hit minimum acceptable quality levels, but no more than that. As most businesses do with the equipment they buy.
 
Thanks for sharing that list GunnyUSMC - does someone else test fire all the fully semi-automatic Assault Rifle 15's that all the mass shooters use? :)

Seriously, I was surprised at the lack of any shotguns on the list - is the rationale similar to the one for the lack of revolvers?

Is there a standard for what ammo you use in test firing? Do you fire one round or several?

Are you only test-firing in this case to match casings? I know matching bullets isn't as easy as they make it look on TV but I was under the impression that LE still makes the attempt?
 
Very interesting. It doesn't surprise me the S&W autos are well represented. I expected to see a high number of the Taurus and Sccy guns as well. I will say I expected the older gen of Ruger autos to have a much higher number in the count. I guess they fell out of favor. Maybe because they were kinda big and bulky, not favorable for putting in your waist.
Now this list is of the guns that I have fired in the last 49 days. I did find it odd that I've had four SCCY pistols so far. I have only been getting 10 to 15 of them a year for the past 6 years. The older Rugers are common, but as the years go by i get fewer of them.
The most common guns I get are Glocks, S&W and Taurus.
 
I wouldn't call those "cheap" guns, but that's definitely a list of guns that looks like "minimum acceptable quality" guns for the most part. Key word there being acceptable. There are lower quality guns, but most knowledgeable people wouldn't consider them to be acceptable for their purposes. Those are mostly guns built/designed to a price point.

Overall, I think it shows that most criminals in your area are being economically rational. They are spending enough money to hit minimum acceptable quality levels, but no more than that. As most businesses do with the equipment they buy.
Now this list of guns is just from the first of the year. By the end of the year the number will be between 800 and 1000.
You state that these guns are minimum acceptable quality levels, but they also cover what most people have. What would you say were above minimum acceptable levels?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top