The Business of Guns

bought or sold guns at nearly half of all investigated gun shows. Furthermore, a third of gun show investigations found that firearms that were illegally purchased or sold would be later recovered at crime scenes, including murder scenes. Of 254 individuals at gun shows who purchased weapons and were cross-referenced in the Firearms Tracing System, 44 appeared with multiple purchase records (an average of 59 firearms per person); of those 44, a further 15 were linked to a total of 188 guns used in crimes. Even so, the ATF can only investigate as few as 1 to 2 percent of gun shows, although this is still enough for a seizure of some 5,000 firearms, along with over 100 arrests, on an annual basis. The ATF concluded from years of investigations that only straw purchases of guns divert more arms into illegal trafficking operations than gun shows do. Additionally, gun show purchases may include guns not legal for private ownership, like machine guns or high-caliber sniper rifles. Finally, gun show participants can purchase the tools or learn the knowledge needed to illegally modify a gun, such as turning a semiautomatic rifle into a fully automatic weapon. The ATF is not the only government institution to scrutinize and criticize gun shows. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) notes that 14 percent of prisoners had bought or purchased a gun used in a felony from a pawnshop, flea market, or gun show. About 2 percent of prisoners who used a military-style gun in a felony, such as an assault weapon or a machine gun, had bought the weapon at a gun show. Interestingly, recidivists were less likely than first-time criminals to use a gun from a gun show in a repeat crime. As another interesting note, not a single female prisoner surveyed had acquired a gun at a gun show—perhaps simply because far fewer women are arrested for felony crimes involving guns.

Chapter 3: Gun Shows

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