Are Gun Shows Really a Source of Crime Guns?
Denver Congresswoman Diana DeGette says that 70 percent of guns used in crimes come from gun shows. Arnie Grossman, head of the Colorado anti-gun group SAFE, which pushed the Colorado gun show initiative in 2000, claimed in the Denver Post that most guns used for criminal purposes are purchased at guns shows. The true figure is rather different, according to the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. According to an NIJ study released in December 1997, less than 2 percent of criminal guns come from gun shows. (Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities, page 99; the report covers much more than homicide.) The same study found that twenty-five percent of crime guns came from gun stores, even though FBI permission is required for every purchase from a gun store. A June 2000 federal study, Federal Firearms Offenders, 1992-98 likewise finds only 1.7% of federal prison inmates obtaining their gun from a gun show. (Plus 1.5% from a “flea market.”) That finding
