Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Gun violence poses a continued challenge, particularly to large cities such as Chicago. In 2016, 90 percent of the city's homicides were committed with a firearm. Despite an increased emphasis on evidence-based criminal justice system practices, too little is currently known regarding the most effective strategies to stem the flow of guns from the licit to the illicit market. One fundamental question this paper seeks to answer is – how important are stolen guns in supplying guns to those at highest risk for being shooters? It could be the case that many stolen guns are diverted to the underground market and end up being used in crime. Alternatively, it could be that many stolen guns end up in the hands of people who do not typically put them to criminal use – for example, that fences sell guns alongside stolen jewelry and electronic gear to customers looking for a discount, with no particular presumption that they are violent criminals. This issue has been a matter of some debate in the literature (Kleck and Wang, 2012; Braga et al., 2012). Surveys that ask incarcerated people whether they stole their gun might understate the importance of theft as a source of guns in the underground gun market, since the person or group responsible for stealing the gun may in turn sell or trade the gun to someone else (and then that person may sell or trade it, and so on). To further explore the connection between theft and criminal gun use, we will identify the percentage of crime guns (ATF Trace data) that were at one time recorded in NCIC as stolen and analyze the time from theft to crime for stolen guns that end up in the ATF Trace data.