By Megan. E. Collins; Susa T. Parker; Thomas L. Scott; Charles F. Wellford

Information is limited on how firearms move from legal possession to illegal possession and use in criminal activities, largely because of data collection capacity and a lack of recent, exhaustive recovery data across jurisdictions. This article includes both an analysis of firearms trace data and prisoner interviews across multiple jurisdictions: New Orleans, Louisiana, Prince George’s County, Maryland, and Chicago, Illinois. Findings indicate that recoveries and trace successes vary across jurisdictions and by type of crime. Jurisdiction regulations were associated with the proportion of guns purchased in state and time to recovery but not with purchaser characteristics. Interviews from imprisoned offenders in two jurisdictions revealed the most common method of obtaining a crime gun was to steal it or buy it off the street.

New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017. 32p.

By Samantha Bricknell

In 2018 there were 847 reported incidents of firearm theft in which 2,425 firearms were stolen. This represents a 15 percent increase in incidents and a 35 percent increase in stolen firearms since 2008–09. Most thefts targeted residential premises with an average of three firearms stolen in each incident. The largest proportion of thefts occurred in regional parts of Australia, indicating a shift from major cities as the primary site of theft incidents. The majority of stolen firearms were in firearm safes at the time of the theft.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 29p.