How Do Criminals Get Guns?

And armed citizen on the scene is a greater deterrent to crime than the state responding when it can.

Since you asked, the answer is on page 6:

http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf

No Background Checks No Cash Needed

http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/surveillance-shows-teens-stealing-weapons-orlando-/nmyBk/

A break in at the Orlando gun show.

How do criminals get guns, the gun show loophole. break in and STEAL them.

hso said:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf

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Thanks for the updated info HSO. With 3 points of data it is clear the big reduction has been from FFLs:

1991 - 20.8%
1997 - 13.9%
2004 - 11.3%

How do bad guys get guns?

If we assume they are already felons and there for cannot legally buy, then we are left with stealing guns or getting the newest clean gang member to straw purchase .

There are hundreds, probably more like thousands of "bad guys" who can walk into any shop and buy whatever they want over the counter.

There is a difference between being a "bad guy" and being "prohibited".

Not all "prohibited" buyers are bad guys, nor are all "bad guys" prohibited.....

I thought this thread was a joke when I saw the title.

Up here, they steal 'em from legal owners(who are promptly charged for being the victim of a crime) or illegally buy 'em Stateside and smuggle 'em in.

If there wasn't a ready supply of stolen guns available on the black market in this country we would see more arms smuggling too. Remember the stuff Leland Yee was involved in smuggling? Grenade launchers and full-auto stuff in addition to the more common stuff. In other parts of the world the entire arms trade is in military hardware, that is the kind of equipment you would see the gangs using if our government somehow made legally acquired firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens a rarity.

Notice the very tiny ( under 1% ) that come from gun shows!

The technology to made a perfectly good 1911 style pistol is obviously over 100 years old. If anti-gunners were even remotely successful in banning guns, we'd see black market manufacturing.

I'd venture to say that making a decent 1911 with modern CNC machining equipment wouldn't be too difficult. It can't be more complicated than making methamphetamine.

"How Do Criminals Get Guns?"

Primarily, as noted in the article...

...criminally.

Todd.

No, not all that criminally.

About 40% from family and friends. This ugly statistic fuels the argument for a NICS check every time. But, like was said, being a BG doesn't mean prohibited.

About 15% just buy them normally with a NICS check anyway. And if you look back at all the "mass" shooters, most did, and used legal weapons. NICS isn't really that big a deterrent if you can pass it and still get a gun. We will NEVER be able to predict which buyer will go rogue and start shooting up the neighborhood.

The other component is from "off the street." Another 40% - which comprised mostly stolen guns. Where did those come from? I'm going to suggest that many didn't get taken out of a locked gun safe in the back closet bedroom of suburbia, UNLESS you were showing it off in the last six weeks and that friend of your buddies came back. After all, you pretty much showed him were it was and how easy to get in, which is statistically quite high in home burglaries.

Guns from cars? Yes. Guns from stores, pawnshops, etc.? Sure. I was working Montgomery Wards in the '80s, a guy came into the store late before closing, lifted the glass off the display case and left with a new stainless Smith 6" .357 and a .38 snub. It's not real hard when dealers leave guns in retail display cases. The glass was intact and unbroken.

All you have to do is be bold - and the citizen in Wichita? "Heroics" describes it best. He was lucky, the last guy I heard of was gunned down from behind in a Walmart.

Permit or not, protecting someone else's property isn't your mission in life - you very well may be deprived of it, and for what? Before we anoint this particular good guy let's ask the other guys wife and family what they think about their dead husband and his heroism. I will, in fact, ask you to tell your spouse and family about it, so they will at least know beforehand. And be prepared for some resistance accepting the idea.

Let's not forget dead heroes don't pay the bills and our family has to move on. Are you fully prepared to die for a few cheap rifles from a sporting goods store if the perp has a backup and both draw down on you? You might be giving them street cred in the gang they want to join, the guns were just icing on the cake.

You cannot possibly know or have all the facts in hand, and you won't have a bird's eye view. You only get about half of the information you'd like to have and it's a game of chance.

About 40% from family and friends. This ugly statistic fuels the argument for a NICS check every time. But, like was said, being a BG doesn't mean prohibited.

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Every time meaning every time I loan a gun to my buddy for a day to shoot some ducks?

I don't think so.

Those guns are acquired from friends and family without their knowledge or stolen.

Or with their knowledge, after all how many of those friends and family were criminals themselves?

Or with their knowledge, after all how many of those friends and family were criminals themselves?

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Exactly.

Just another criminal activity where a background check wouldn't be done.

Do you think a felon is going to get a BC to transfer a gun to a friend or relative?

Not likely.

From Cook & Ludwig themselves: http://home.uchicago.edu/ludwigj/papers/EJ_gun_markets_2007.pdf

Spoiler: they said gang members and career criminals tend to know people who know people who have easier access to all sorts of things.

If he had busted a cap on them he would have been charged - and rightly too, for he had renewed the confrontation after it was over when he didn't have to. 'Playing cop', like Zimmerman, is not always going to turn out so well.

They primarily steal them, or buy stolen ones.

Generally, illegally.

They are criminals after all.

Neither the how nor the ending surprises me. It's another responsible gun owner taking responsible and appropriate action and preventing firearms from winding up on the black market to be used offensively to harm others.

Criminals will do just about anything to get their hands on guns and their desperation or impulsiveness to harm will drive them to take great risks that often ends in innocent people getting hurt or killed. And if the guns don't exist, they'll just learn how to make bombs or some new device they can use to harm others.

Without concealed carry, innocent people are walking targets without any means of fighting back. We see it all the time with spree shootings where the active shooter frequently favors spree killing in "gun free zones." With concealed carry, prudent action can change everything from preventing crime from ever happening, to protecting property, to directly preventing the loss of innocent life.

And like the large majority of times a firearm is used in justifiable self-defense, the law abiding citizen did NOT need to even pull the trigger and was more than capable of determining the appropriate response to that specific situation. The simple awareness that one of the good guys were armed was sufficient to change the behavior of the criminals. This is a clear demonstration that the firearm itself, even without being fired, has a deterrent effect.

When anti-gun people argue that guns are rarely used for self defense, many of their studies do NOT take into account the frequency in which a firearm is used but not fired. This scenario happens all the time, yet it almost never is shown by larger media outlets (interestingly enough, they go to great length to write about every time a firearm is used illegally in an offensive manner.)

Then again, if major media outlets covered these types of stories, it would go against the "everything-hating, anti-government, anti-human rights, always shoot first but ask questions later, vigilante, and just start blasting away in every situation without the least bit of discretion" image they love to convey.

I'd have done the same. Broken windows and all. If I see a crime or a person in danger I'm intervening. I'm in this world for more than just "me and mine". The law is the law but I grew up on spider man comics and uncle ben, and there is a difference between what's right and what's legal sometimes. Obviously the law ought to be followed but a free man asks what is right. You aren't obligated to be courageous, but don't justify 'cowardice' (it's too strong of a word but opting to do less just because you can do less is that basically) with the "well its not my job" line of reasoning. Whatever you're scared of isn't as bad as living in a world where the only reason to do the right thing is if it's your job.

That family and friends 40% source of crime guns is somewhat misleading; as Wright & Rossi pointed out in their "Armed and Considered Dangerous" survey and their "Under the Gun" review of firearms and violence, family and friends of criminals who supply guns to them are often criminals themselves.