Who is Manufacturing the Guns Used in Crimes?City-Level Data on Crime Gun Recoveries
By Everytown Research & Policy , Everytown for Gun Safety
The gun industry has long avoided taking responsibility for the use of its products in crimes and violence. Despite receiving notifications from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) when their guns are recovered and traced,2 manufacturers often deny knowledge of just how often their guns inflict harm upon communities.3 Instead, they continue to produce increasingly deadly weapons and lean into dangerous advertising tactics, while generating an estimated $9 billion in revenue annually.4 Meanwhile, America’s gun violence epidemic costs the country over 44,000 lives and $557 billion each year.
To combat this attempt to avoid responsibility, the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund (Everytown) embarked on a city-by-city collection of recovered crime gun data, seeking to answer the question of which gun manufacturers’ weapons are showing up at America’s crime scenes. This data collection was made possible by Everytown’s long-standing coalition of mayors fighting to end gun violence: Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The data received included 178,218 crime guns recovered in 34 US cities over the past five years
Key findings from Everytown’s analysis include:
Of the over 11,000 licensed gun manufacturers in the United States, four manufacturers—Glock, Taurus, Smith & Wesson, and Ruger—accounted for over 40 percent of the guns recovered in crimes in 2023.6
Glock pistols were recovered at crime scenes twice as often as the second-leading manufacturer, Taurus.7
Crime scene recoveries of Polymer80s—the largest producer of ghost guns today—increased nearly 1,200 percent over the past five years, finally showing signs of decline in 2023, following litigation as well as regulatory and legislative fixes.8
Twenty cities reported recovering more than 560 machine gun conversion devices in 2023, at least two-thirds of which were “Glock switches.”
This report adds to the growing evidence about the use of gun manufacturers’ products in crimes.9 It highlights the urgency for manufacturers and policymakers to act by implementing codes of conduct, cutting off irresponsible dealers, innovating safety features, and advertising products responsibly because the best time to prevent gun violence is before it happens.
New York: Everytown Research & Policy is a program of Everytown for Gun Safety, 2024. 15p.