Selling Crime — High Crime Gun Stores Fuel Criminals

SUMMARY

A small number of the nation’s 80,000 gun dealers are flooding America’s streets with crime guns – yet Washington rarely investigates, shuts down or prosecutes most of these high-crime dealers.

In the past, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) has shown that approximately 1% of the nation’s gun stores are the source of 57% of the firearms traced to crimes. Yet ATF has never released the names of the most egregious stores – the stores that habitually sell guns that are later used in crimes. This report is the first ever to identify the nation’s high crime gun stores, disclosing the top 120 high crime gun dealers across 22 states – using ATF data from 1996-2000, the most recent data available. It also reveals, for the first time publicly, the ATF’s track record in auditing these dealers (from 2000 to 2003) and details the violations committed by these high crime dealers.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS REPORT WAS RELEASED IN JANUARY 2004 AND HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED SINCE.

To read this Report, open the attached PDF