The Rust Pipeline

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By Guy Smith, GunFacts. Apr 29, 2023

There is no "iron pipeline" of guns trafficked from low gun control states to high ones.

There is a rust pipeline of legally migrating guns mainly between neighboring states.

Take-aways

• Most crime guns are retailed in the state where they were recovered, including in high gun control states.
• Most intrastate guns come from neighboring states, including other high gun control states.
• Most guns legally follow owners when they move between states, which frequently are neighboring states.
• Approximately 6,000,000 guns at minimum move legally between states each, and of these, 433,000 move between neighboring states

Crime guns are largely local

One reality is that most crime guns are retailed in the same state where they were recovered. Across all states, 68% of traced guns were retailed in the same state where they were recovered.

But there are significant variations. Due to decades of restrictions, Washington, DC (not a state, but worth including since it has the highest gun homicide rates in the nation) had only 5% of its traced guns originating there. Little wonder, since for a long time there were no DC gun stores per se. The next lowest is 20% (New Jersey, also highly restrictive) and the highest is 85% (Texas).

This is where things get odd and where politicians launch irrational agitprop. And it gets odd on two vectors: where crime guns come from and how long it takes for those guns to be used in crime.

The short story is that it takes a very long time for a retailed gun to be used in a crime, regardless of whether it was retailed in or outside of a state. If "iron pipelines" existed, you would see a very short interval ("time to crime," or TTC) and it would be consistent among states with strict gun retailing laws.

Neither is true. .....
(Gun Facts Source Page)