Unfortunately, the latest Department of Justice statistics are not available to me, but those compiled in 2001 of Firearm Use by Offenders reveals that perhaps banning semi-automatic and military-style automatic weapons may not be the only needed change in gun laws.
According to the report, in 1997 only a combined 8% of State and Federal inmates reported using semi-automatic or military-style automatic weapons in the commission of their crimes. Far more telling is how handguns used in crimes by State and Federal inmates were obtained. Of those used by 1997 State inmates, a combined total of 13.9% were purchased from retail stores, pawnshops, flea markets and gun shows; while of 1991 Federal inmates, 20.8% were purchased from the same sources.
The frightening statistic is that nearly half of the remaining guns that were not purchased illegally, were purchased from friends and family. This roughly 40 percent of guns in the State and Federal categories for each of two different years, which were sold into the hands of criminals who committed crimes, including homicide, seems to me just as frightening as the statistic of the 8% who used semi-automatic and military-style guns.
I certainly don't pretend to know the solution, but believe this is a question which must be raised just as much as that of mental health when it comes to gun laws.
Stefan Janis
According to the report, in 1997 only a combined 8% of State and Federal inmates reported using semi-automatic or military-style automatic weapons in the commission of their crimes. Far more telling is how handguns used in crimes by State and Federal inmates were obtained. Of those used by 1997 State inmates, a combined total of 13.9% were purchased from retail stores, pawnshops, flea markets and gun shows; while of 1991 Federal inmates, 20.8% were purchased from the same sources.
The frightening statistic is that nearly half of the remaining guns that were not purchased illegally, were purchased from friends and family. This roughly 40 percent of guns in the State and Federal categories for each of two different years, which were sold into the hands of criminals who committed crimes, including homicide, seems to me just as frightening as the statistic of the 8% who used semi-automatic and military-style guns.
I certainly don't pretend to know the solution, but believe this is a question which must be raised just as much as that of mental health when it comes to gun laws.
Stefan Janis
