Guns Used in Crime

• NCJ Number: 148201
• Date Published: July 1995
• Author(s): M W Zawitz
• Length: 7 pages
• Publication Series: BJS Selected Findings
• Agencies: BJS
• Publication Type: Survey

Annotation

This report presents statistics on the use of guns in crime; of almost 2 million violent crimes of murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault reported in 1993, about 582,000 were committed with firearms.

Abstract

Since there is no national collection of data about the guns used by criminals, this report provides information from several sources, including the FBI National Crime Information Center's stolen gun file, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms National Tracing Center, the BJS National Crime Victimization Survey, the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the BJS Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities, other inmate surveys, and special studies of homicides involving guns. The report covers how often guns are used in crime, what categories of firearms are most often used, and what type of guns is preferred by criminals. This is the first of a series of reports on firearms and crime that will be part of a comprehensive report entitled Firearms, Crime, and Criminal Justice. Includes bibliography.