The massive recycling of guns in the United States highlights the deteriorating gun violence

According to CNN, in 2021, law enforcement agencies in some major cities in the United States seized or recovered a large number of guns in the past decade. Many police departments also reported that they had recovered a large number of ghost guns, which are often purchased online and assembled at home.

'we must stop the flow of guns,' New York Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference on January 24. We are clearing thousands of guns from the streets. It seems that for every gun we clear from the streets, five come in. This is unacceptable.

In New York, police arrested 4497 gunmen in 2021, up 3% from 2020 but 26% from 2019. The seizure of a large number of guns comes at a time of a surge in gun violence in the country since the outbreak of the epidemic war.

According to the analysis data of CNN, in 2021, more than two-thirds of the most populous cities in the country recorded more murders than the previous year, and at least 10 cities recorded historical murders, most of which were carried out with guns.

CNN asked police departments in more than a dozen of the largest cities in the United States to provide data on gun seizures and recoveries. Of the eight cities that provided data by the end of 2021, all had higher gun recycling last year than in 2020, and several of them reached their highest levels in at least a decade.

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) recovered more than 12000 guns in 2021, up from 11397 in 2020, including guns recovered through repurchase programs and other voluntary means. It is worth noting that last year's total included at least 706 offensive weapons. According to the Chicago Police Department, this is 62% higher than the amount recycled in 2020.

Experts said that the increase in the number of guns and the difficulty of tracking legal and illegal possession of guns made it challenging to effectively deal with gun violence. The data showed that these guns were involved in the shooting and were found more and more frequently at the crime scene.

Several cities reported a sharp increase in the number of ghost guns recovered over time, and although they account for a relatively small proportion of the total number of guns recovered by law enforcement, this proportion is increasing.

San Francisco police seized 1089 guns in 2021, about 20% of which were ghost guns. Just five years ago, in 2016, ghost guns accounted for less than 1% of the total gun seizures. Similar rapid growth is also evident in other cities. Baltimore reported 352 ghost guns seized last year, while Washington state reported more than 400 in 2021, up from 25 in 2018.

Raj Vaswani, Acting Deputy Director of investigation of the San Francisco police department, said that ghost guns encountered by police officers are usually more dangerous than the typical guns found by the Department. The San Francisco police department also reported that nearly half of the guns seized in homicides in 2020 were ghost guns.

Thanks to decades of successful lobbying to protect the privacy of gun owners, it is impossible to fully understand how many guns are legally purchased, let alone illegally purchased. The FBI tracks pre-sale background checks, but there is no federal database of gun sales or ownership. According to the 2003 constitutional amendment, the law requires the agency to destroy the records of approved gun buyers within 24 hours after approval.

Although background checks cannot be directly translated into gun sales, these data can be used as a window to understand the interest of the United States in gun purchase. The number of background checks surged in the first few months of the epidemic and has remained high since then.

Gun advocacy groups and Criminology experts pointed out that the uncertainty of the epidemic is the main driving force of gun sales. According to the firearms industry and trade group of the national shooting sports foundation, 40% of gun buyers in 2020 are first-time buyers.

MAS chitum, Acting Deputy Director of the US Bureau of tobacco, alcohol, firearms and explosives (ATF), said that the vast majority of legally purchased guns would never be used for crime. But the increasing number of guns in shops and homes also brings a series of inherent risks.

Chitum said that part of the agency's work includes contacting gun stores and emphasizing the importance of appropriate gun safety and storage in an environment of increased demand, especially among first-time buyers. The more guns, but not really properly stored, the more likely they are to be stolen. We know that stolen guns are an important source of criminal guns.

The U.S. Bureau of tobacco, alcohol, firearms and explosives said in a statement to CNN that guns with a short criminal time have the most direct investigation potential for law enforcement officials, because the frequency of changing hands of these guns may be reduced from initial purchase to recovery by law enforcement agencies.

Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for gun violence prevention and policy, said. The number of firearms tracked by the anti money laundering working group increased from about 217000 in 2015 to slightly more than 393000 in 2020. He believes that this reflects a very basic thing, that is, more guns, more gun crimes.

Since 2000, the United States government has not conducted a comprehensive study on the sources of gun trafficking. Last April, the Biden administration instructed the Justice Department to issue a new report, which will be updated every year, but has not yet been released.

According to the FBI, the number of homicides in 2020 increased by nearly 30% over 2019, the largest annual increase recorded by the agency since it began tracking these crimes in the 1960s. About 77% of the murders reported in 2020 were committed with guns, up from 74% in 2019.

San Francisco police's Vaswani stressed the impact of rising gun violence on families and communities. He said that children and innocent people in the community are caught in unrelated gun violence. They're just in the wrong place at the wrong time.


Source: EURONET