July 7, 2014

Tracing Guns Back to their Home State

As reported by ProPublica, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) ran traces on 624 guns found in Connecticut in 2012. Of those traced, 44.1% of the firearms were originally purchased in another state – New York, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio being the top five.

On the other hand, the ATF ran traces on 593 firearms in 2012 that traced back to Connecticut and 41.1% of those weapons were found outside the state.

Nationally, of the 155,530 traces run in 2012, 44,832 were for weapons that were purchased outside of the state where they were found. By volume, Georgia, Virginia, Texas, Florida, and Indiana were the biggest sources for weapons that found their way to another state. All five states had at least 2,100 firearms make their way to other states.