It’s about time somebody we stop letting Liberals get away with making up their own facts. I’m talking about the statement that the reason crime is so high in strong gun law States is the influx of illegal guns from weak gun law States. A writer for the Gun Facts website studied the numbers available on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms website concerning their Crime Gun Trace Program.
His findings:
- Most crime guns come from the State where the crime was committed.
- The 2nd largest contributor to crime guns are the States that border that State, REGARDLESS of how strong the border States gun laws are.
- The 3rd largest contributor are States in the same geographical area REGARDLESS of how strong that States’ gun laws are.
The example State used was Maryland, a State with some of the strongest gun laws in the country and a Governor that parrots the above statement religiously. But even with strong gun laws, Maryland ranks near the top on the violent crimes list: Number 3 in robbery, Number 6 in murder, Number 11 in overall violent crimes and Number 16 in assault.
The map below shows the top 15 States where crime guns recovered in Maryland originated.
I’ve taken the information from the map and put it in chart form to make it a little easier to extract.
The numbers in the chart clearly verify the statements made above:
- The most crime guns used in Maryland, came from Maryland – 59.9%
- The 2nd and 3rd largest contributors were border States
- The 4th largest was in the same geographical area
- The 5th largest was a border State
- The 6th and 7th largest were in the same geographical area
- The 8th largest was a border State
- The remainder were same geographical area except for Texas and California.
This pretty much discredits the claim that tough gun law States’ crime problem is caused by weak gun law States.
It also brings out some other interesting information. Four States that received passing gun law grades from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence are contributing to Maryland’s problem. Two of those, California and New York received the Brady Campaign’s highest grade. California with it strong gun laws and located all away across the country is still able to contribute 48 crime guns to Maryland’s problem.
Based on gun law strength, 71% of traced crime guns come from States with strong gun laws, 29% come from States with so-called weak gun laws.
I think you can file this gun control claim with most of the others under false.