Understanding Guns and Gun Violence

Abstract

This paper analyzes the type, brand, caliber and manufacturing date of more than 9,000 guns connected to suicide, homicide and theft in multiple jurisdictions throughout the United States. The paper finds that gun violence is not a function of the number of privately-owned guns per se, but of the ownership and availability of handguns. The paper further argues that regulatory policies which are based on understanding the provenance of individual guns cannot be utilized for more than one-third of all crime guns, given their age and lack of serialization.

Keywords: guns, gun violence, gun regulations, gun tracing

JEL Classification: [I18comma separated]