Population-level effects on crime of recovering firearms from armed prohibited persons: intention-to-treat analysis of a pragmatic cluster-randomised trial in California cities

Background

Too little is known about the effectiveness of efforts to prevent firearm violence. We evaluated California’s Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), which identifies legal purchasers of firearms who have become prohibited persons and seeks to recover all firearms and ammunition to which they have access.

Design and methods

This cluster-randomised pragmatic trial was made possible by APPS’s expansion from a small pilot to a continuing statewide programme. We included 363 California cities, allocated to early (n=187) or later (n=176) intervention in blocks stratified by region within the state, and within region by population and violent crime rate. The study period began 1 February 2015; region-specific end dates ranged from 1 May 2015 to 1 February 2016. Analysis was on an intention-to-treat, difference-in-difference basis using generalised linear mixed models and generalised estimating equations with robust SEs. The population-level primary outcome measures were monthly city-level counts of firearm-related homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults. The primary model was adjusted for stratification variables; city-level population, population density, socioeconomic status and firearm purchasing; year; and month.

Findings

Allocation groups were well balanced on baseline characteristics and implementation measures. In adjusted models, allocation to early intervention was not associated with statistically significant differences in any primary outcome measure; these findings were robust to multiple sensitivity analyses. There was some heterogeneity across regions.

Conclusions

The APPS intervention directly affects a very small percentage of the population, limiting its potential for population-level effects. Individual-level analyses may provide a better estimate of the intervention’s effectiveness.

Trial registration number

NCT02318732.

Firearm-related threats before migrating to the USA from Latin America and the Caribbean

Background

Every year, thousands of people from Latin America and the Caribbean are migrating to the USA. Policy-makers have argued that US firearms are fuelling violence in these countries and are contributing to migration. The objective of this article is to examine the proportion of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean arriving at the US border who have previously been threatened with a firearm. This article further explores sociodemographic factors associated with the likelihood of previous firearm-related threats, whether those threats are associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as the reasons behind those threats.

Methods

Data were obtained from a survey of migrants recruited at the southern US border from March 2022 to August 2023. To be selected, respondents had to be 18 years of age or older, had to speak English or Spanish and come from a Latin American or Caribbean country. We used descriptive statistics and a logistic regression.

Results

We analysed 321 cases. Roughly, 48% of respondents reported previous firearm-related threats. Males and respondents coming from Honduras, Venezuela and El Salvador were more likely to report previous firearm-related threats. There was a strong association between previous firearm-related threats and signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Most threats occurred during robberies or extortions, but other threats were perpetrated by authorities, to prevent crime reporting, or by intimate partners.

Conclusion

Understanding the violence, particularly firearm-related violence, experienced by those migrating to the USA from Latin America and the Caribbean could help guide policy discussion and actions.

Firearm businesses as partners in suicide prevention: a cross-sectional study of the Gun Shop Project in Colorado, USA

Background

The Gun Shop Project aims to reduce firearm suicide and is widely implemented in the USA, yet little is known about the core firearm business practices and behaviours that might contribute to preventing firearm suicide.

Methods

Owners or managers of all firearm businesses identified as participants in Colorado’s Gun Shop Project were invited to respond to a questionnaire. Data collection occurred from March to May 2021. Analyses included unweighted descriptive statistics with CIs and Pearson ² tests for categorical associations.

Results

54 firearm businesses participated (response rate: 28%). Under half reported practices that are Gun Shop Project core aspects (range: 14%–45%). 22% of businesses frequently engaged customers on the importance of safe firearm storage in suicide prevention while 26% had denied a firearm sale and 14% had assisted with temporary secure storage in the past year with customers perceived to be in suicidal crisis. However, high proportions reported willingness to engage in these behaviours if a customer was in crisis: 74% were willing to refuse a sale of a firearm or ammunition, 70% were willing to discuss temporary secure storage options and 70% were willing to direct customers to mental health services.

Conclusions

This study suggests that efforts to continue educating and involving firearm businesses may have an impact on the adoption of organisational suicide prevention practices and behaviours. Ongoing efforts are needed to understand core components of Gun Shop Project to inform standardised recommendations for effective firearm business practices that prevent firearm suicide.

Comprehensive Firearms Tracing: Strategic and Investigative Uses of New Data on Firearms Markets

In 1999, more than 150,000 firearms were submitted by law enforcement agencies for tracing by the ATF, three times as many as in 1993. This growth in trace requests indicates the successes of ATF’s program in persuading state and local agencies of the strategic value of comprehensive firearms tracing. About four dozen cities now submit all firearms confiscated by the police for tracing, and the growing database of trace results has provided the raw material for improved intelligence on the channels by which guns are acquired by criminals. However, the proper interpretation and use of these data remains controversial.

Underground Gun Markets

This paper provides an economic analysis of underground gun markets drawing on interviews with gang members, gun dealers, professional thieves, prostitutes, police, public school security guards, and teens in the city of Chicago, complemented by results from government surveys of recent arrestees in 22 cities plus administrative data for suicides, homicides, robberies, arrests and confiscated crime guns. We find evidence of considerable friction in the underground market for guns in Chicago. We argue that these frictions are due primarily to the fact that the underground gun market is both illegal and “thin” — the number of buyers, sellers, and total transactions is small, and relevant information is scarce. Gangs can help overcome these market frictions, but the gang’s economic interests cause gang leaders to limit supply primarily to gang members, and even then, transactions are usually loans or rentals with strings attached.

Some Sources of Crime Guns in Chicago: Dirty Dealers, Straw Purchasers, and Traffickers

In this Article, the authors seek to help guide law enforcement activities targeting gun acquisition by high-risk people by examining two potentially important sources of crime guns: licensed retail dealers and traffickers. Limited data availability is a key reason more is not currently known about how criminals obtain guns. This article assembles a unique dataset that combines five years of crime gun trace requests submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol of Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) National Tracing Center (NTC) by the Chicago Police Department (CPD), linked to other CPD data sources about the person who was caught with the gun. From these data, we are able to identify which of the violators have been gang members and to compare their guns with those of violators who are not gang members. We focus, in particular, on how gang members obtain guns since this population is at the highest risk of shooting someone and being shot. We hypothesize that gang members may differ from others in how they access guns.

Sources of guns to dangerous people: What we learn by asking them

Gun violence exacts a lethal toll on public health. This paper focuses on reducing access to firearms by dangerous offenders, contributing original empirical data on the gun transactions that arm offenders in Chicago. Conducted in the fall of 2013, analysis of an open-ended survey of 99 inmates of Cook County Jail focuses on a subset of violence-prone individuals with the goal of improving law enforcement actions.

Among our principal findings:

*Our respondents (adult offenders living in Chicago or nearby) obtain most of their guns from their social network of personal connections. Rarely is the proximate source either direct purchase from a gun store, or theft.

*Only about 60% of guns in the possession of respondents were obtained by purchase or trade. Other common arrangements include sharing guns and holding guns for others.

*About one in seven respondents report selling guns, but in only a few cases as a regular source of income.

*Gangs continue to play some role in Chicago in organizing gun buys and in distributing guns to members as needed.

*The Chicago Police Department has a considerable effect on the workings of the underground gun market through deterrence. Transactions with strangers and less-trusted associates are limited by concerns over arrest risk (if the buyer should happen to be an undercover officer or a snitch), and about being caught with a “dirty” gun (one that has been fired in a crime).

Regulating Gun Markets

With the rapid increase since the mid-1980’s in rates of homicide and other criminal violence, crime has emerged as the nation’s leading domestic problem. One tactic for mitigating lethal violence is gun control –government regulation of the production, exchange, and use of personal firearms. A number of proposals are currently being debated at the federal, state, and local levels. Recently, Congress enacted the Brady Bill and adopted a partial ban on assault weapons, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) toughened sales procedures for gun-dealers. A central issue in debating these and other control measures is which types of regulation are likely to be most cost-effective in reducing gun violence.

This Article concerns the secondary gun market, one of the key issues in understanding the potential effectiveness of gun control measures. The primary objective of much of the gun control effort in the United States is to discourage certain categories of people, including felons and those under indictment, from obtaining and possessing guns, while preserving ready availability of guns for everyone else.

Underground Gun Markets

This article provides an economic analysis of underground gun markets, drawing on interviews with gang members, gun dealers, professional thieves, prostitutes, police, public school security guards and teenagers in the city of Chicago, complemented by results from government surveys of recent arrestees in 22 cities, plus administrative data for suicides, homicides, robberies, arrests and confiscated crime guns. We find evidence that transactions costs are considerable in the underground gun market in Chicago, and to some extent in other cities as well. The most likely explanation is that the underground gun market is both illegal and ‘thin’– relevant information about trading opportunities is scarce due to illegality, which makes search costly for market participants and leads to a market thickness effect on transaction costs.

Gun Markets

The systematic study of how available weapons influence the rates, patterns, and outcomes of criminal violence is new, but it is now a well-established and fast-growing subfield in criminology, legal studies, public health, and economics. This review focuses on the transactions that arm dangerous offenders, noting that if those transactions could be effectively curtailed it would have an immediate and profound effect on gun violence and homicide rates. Guns are legal commodities, but violent offenders typically obtain their guns by illegal means. Our knowledge of these transactions comes primarily from trace data on guns recovered by the police and from occasional surveys of gun-involved offenders. Because most guns used in crime are sourced from the stock of guns in private hands (rather than a purchase from a licensed dealer), the local prevalence of gun ownership appears to influence the transaction costs and the proportions of robberies and assaults committed with guns rather than knives or other weapons. Nonetheless, regulations that govern licensed dealers have been linked to trafficking patterns and in some cases to the use of guns in crime.