Non-Gun Owners Committed 79% of Gun Crimes in Pittsburgh in 2008, Study Finds

Non-Gun Owners Committed 79% of Gun Crimes in Pittsburgh in 2008, Study Finds

(CNSNews.com) – Seventy-nine percent of gun crimes in Pittsburgh in 2008 were committed by non-gun owners, a study published in the July edition of Social Medicine found.

Researchers led by Anthony Fabio, an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, traced the sources of all 893 firearms recovered from crime scenes in 2008 by the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Firearm Tracking Unit (FTU), which resulted in 762 different cases involving 607 perpetrators.

Of the 607 perpetrators, 478 (78.7 percent) “were carrying or linked to a firearm that did not belong to them,” researchers found. Only 87 (14.2 percent) were gun owners legally carrying their firearm at the time the crime was committed, they noted.

“Most perpetrators (79%) were carrying a gun that did not belong to them…. Given that 79% of perpetrators are connected to firearms for which they are not the legal owner, it is highly likely that a significant amount of theft or trafficking is the source of perpetrators’ firearms,” the study noted.

More than 30 percent of guns confiscated by the bureau’s FTU were confirmed to be stolen, according to the study. However, 62 percent of gun owners told police that they did not know their weapon had been stolen.

Read more at CNS news