Argument:
Criminals don't follow gun laws, and so won't be affected by gun control; only law-abiding citizens will.
Example: "Numerous studies conducted by academic researchers and by the federal government have shown that criminals do not use legal markets to obtain guns. And now we have more evidence of this reality, this time looking at criminals in Chicago." (NRA)
Another example: "Regardless of gun control laws, criminals, crazies and terrorists manage to obtain firearms. Always have. Always will. To believe otherwise is dangerously naive." (USA Today op-ed)
Response:
1. Criminals sometimes (though not always) obtain guns legally; a 2012 study found that almost 30% of imprisoned criminals legally possessed their most recent gun (Vittes et al. 2012). There is also evidence that licensed dealers that become corrupted play a major role in selling guns to people who shouldn't be able to buy them legally, such as criminals and illegal street sellers (Wachtel 1998). When Maryland banned Saturday Night Specials, a cheap type of handgun, it effectively reduced the frequency with which criminals in Baltimore used them to commit crimes. This indicates that gun laws can affect criminals (Vernick et al. 1999).
Studies of multiple US states have shown that states with permit and licensing laws in place regarding gun sales were less likely to have guns sold there be recovered in crimes (Webster et al. 2001). There is also good evidence that states with weak gun laws act as a source of crime guns that end up being used in other states with strict gun laws. For example, a 2015 study found that over 60% of new guns used in gang-related crimes in Chicago, Illinois, as well as over 30% of those used in non-gang-related crimes there, were sold in other states. The study looked at crimes committed in the city from 2009 to 2013. Indiana was a particularly big source of crime guns in the study, a finding that has also been replicated by other research (NPR 2017). Other studies have reached similar results (Kahane 2013, Knight 2013).
Federal and state gun laws have also been associated with changes in the diversion of guns to criminals consistent with these laws being effective (Pierce et al. 2014, Webster et al. 2012, 2013).
The study the NRA and other right-wing gun rights activists cited to argue that criminals do not obtain guns legally, and thus are not affected by gun laws, doesn't show any such thing. In fact, the study's authors called out some of these misrepresentations in a letter to a Las Vegas newspaper, in which they stated,
"The editorial board concludes, “Regardless, as has been shown many times, criminals are not going to follow any gun control law.” This is plainly not the case — by similar logic, there would be no reason to have any laws. We doubt the editorial board of this newspaper would take a stance against legal prohibitions of burglary, domestic violence or drunken driving, just because those prohibitions — like regulations on gun transactions — are sometimes violated.
In fact, our research indicates that criminals are very much influenced by existing gun laws. Background checks and other laws deter most offenders from purchasing guns from gun stores, despite the obvious advantages of doing so. Those who are determined to obtain a gun often attempt to do so by searching for someone they know personally who might have one for sale" (Cook et al. 2015).
Harold Pollack, another of the study's authors, said that much of the misleading coverage it got "seemed to just grab a soundbite … that we don’t feel accurately reflects what we found" (Clark 2015).
Sources:
Clark 2015
Cook et al. 2015
Kahane 2013
Knight 2013
NPR 2017
Pierce et al. 2014
Vernick et al. 1999
Vittes et al. 2012
Wachtel 1998
Webster et al. 2001
Webster et al. 2012
Webster et al. 2013 (Ch. 8, pp. 109-121)
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