Broken Records: How America's Faulty Background Check System Allows Criminal to Get Guns

The report, entitled Broken Records, uses data culled from the Department of Justice and various state sources and gives failing grades to 22 states for having grossly inadequate criminal, domestic violence, and mental disability records. North Carolina received the top grade of B+, followed by New York and Michigan, which received B's. Indiana maintains the worst records in the country.Each state compiles felony conviction, mental disability, and domestic violence records for use by the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and state agencies to approve or disapprove gun buyers under the Brady Law. Because states have failed to computerize many of these records, thousands of prohibited buyers have been able to obtain guns even after undergoing a background check.AGSF found that, according to state and federal sources, 9,976 prohibited buyers throughout the nation obtained a gun because of faulty records. Under federal law, if the state or federal government cannot complete a background check within 3 business days, gun dealers may turn over a firearm to a buyer. AGSF warned that this number represents only the tip of the iceberg, as the figure does not include the thousands of others who might have obtained guns illegally because mental disability and domestic violence records are either not part of the database or totally nonexistent in many states

Gun Violence in America: An Analysis of 2018 CDC Data

This report outlines gun death data from 2018, and shows trends over 10 years. The purpose of the report is to share data in an accessible and user-friendly format. All data were accessed using the Centers for Disease Control's Underlying Cause of death database, part of the Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER)database. The Underlying Cause of Death database contains data based on death certificates forUnited States residents. This report is an update to Gun Violence in America: 2018 Data Brief (released January 31, 2020, following the initial release of 2018 mortality data) and includes age-adjusted rates, demographics, and state-by-state breakdown

The Health Costs of Gun Violence: How the U.S. Compares to Other Countries

In the following seven charts, we illustrate how gun violence affects Americans compared to people in 13 other high-income countries. The data are drawn from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation's (IHME) Global Burden of Disease database, the Small Arms Survey's Global Firearms Holdings database, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office's Firearm Injuries: Health Care Service Needs and Costs report (see "Data Sources and Methods" for details)

Implementing a Database to Intervene in and Reduce Gun Violence in Rochester, NY

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the issue of gun violence, specifically urban gun violence in the city of Rochester, New York. The goal was to gain an understanding of the circumstances surrounding these shootings and to learn how to potentially reduce these types of incidents. In order to do this, we created a database containing over 200 different variables covering incident information, victim/suspect information, weapons information, circumstances, and outcome of the investigation. All fatal and non-fatal shootings in the City of Rochester between years 2010 and 2012 were entered into this database. These three years’ worth of data were then analyzed. One of the most notable findings included the large proportion of shootings that were identified as being the result of some type of dispute. It was also found that over half of the shootings had some degree of gang involvement, and the overwhelming majority of all shootings in the study were carried out by handguns. Additionally, less than half of the victims claimed to not know their attacker. Based on this information, it is safe to say that most shootings in Rochester are not random; there is likely a precursor or series of events leading up to the shooting. This tells us that intervention is possible if we identify ongoing disputes that are escalating in violence. Once we identify the violent disputes, we can focus police, social, and political resources in those acute areas and groups. This project helped to secure funding for these exact types of programs through the New York State Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative, as well as the Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) Violent Retaliatory Dispute Project

Youth Gang Violence and Guns: Data Collection in California

Provides an overview of data on youth gang-related homicides, the role of firearms in the rising lethality of gang violence, and the state of data collection. Illustrates the need for a comprehensive database to support effective prevention policies

American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States (7th Edition 2020)

Murder-suicides are a shockingly common form of gun violence in the United States — an estimated 11 such incidents each week. VPC research has found that more than 1,200 Americans die in murder-suicides each year. Nine out of 10 murder-suicides involve a gun. In nearly two-thirds of all murder-suicides, an intimate partner of the shooter is among the victims.No comprehensive national database or tracking system exists to systematically document the toll in death and injury of murder-suicides in the United States. In order to more fully understand the human costs of these incidents, the VPC began collecting and analyzing news reports of murder-suicides, resulting in a series of studies titled American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States. The VPC has published seven editions of this study

How Cities Can Combat Illegal Guns and Gun Violence

Though gun violence peaked in American cities in the early 1990s, firearms are still used in more than 30 homicides per day in the U.S.One major challenge is how to stanch the flow of guns to criminals. Researchers from the School's Center for Gun Policy and Research have recently zeroed in on illegal sales by licensed dealers (the dominant means of diverting guns into illegal markets). These sales include unrecorded, "off the books" transactions and "straw purchases" in which a person unable to pass a federal background check relies on another individual for the purchase.Daniel Webster, MPH, ScD '91, Center co-director, wants to increase the accountability of gun dealers. This report outlines how to reduce illegal gun trafficking, reduce illegal gun carrying, and use technology to prevent gun violence

A Census Of Domestic Violence: Gun Homicides In Arizona

To better assess the dynamics of domestic violence gun homicides in Arizona, Everytown collaborated with the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (ACESDV) to closely examine intimate partner gun homicides in Arizona between 2009-2013. This research is the first and most comprehensive of its kind for the state. The incidents documented in this report, and the data drawn from them, vividly illustrate that Arizona needs an improved approach to addressing the threat gun violence poses for victims of domestic violenc

Missing Records: Holes in Background Check System Allow Illegal Buyers to Get Guns

This report takes a look at the state of the background check system in the wake of the most lethal gun crime in American history -- one with direct relevance to the troubles with the background check system. An illegal buyer, Seung-Hui Cho, was able to pass a background check because his data was missing from the system. He purchased two firearms which he used to kill 32 people and wound 29 others at Virginia Tech University. In this report, we conclude that the background check system is better and more accurate than five years ago, but still deeply flawed, particularly in certain areas like mental health disqualifications. Dangerous holes in the system remain because states have not adequately completed the important tasks of collecting and automating all of the records necessary to disqualify illegal gun buyers from passing a check to obtain a firearm. On the positive side, the records of those who have committed felony crimes or have directed violence toward women have shown significant improvement. On the negative side, it is still virtually impossible to stop a person who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution from passing a background check and buying a gun