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102827 

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U.S. Deoartnmat of Justice 

National Institute of Justice 

November 1§86 ......... 

The Armed Criminal in America 

James D. Wright 

Violent crime that threatens or abuses 

the physical safety of its victims lies 

at the heart of the crime problem in 

America today. In turn, the use of 

firearms to commit these crimes 

• increases the seriousness of the violence problem. Each year, some 

30,000 Americans die through the 

suicidal, homicidal, or accidental 

abuse of guns; several hundreds of 

thousands are injured; many hundreds 

of thousands more are victimized by 

gun crime. And the contribution of 

armed crime to the public's fear of 

crime is incalculable. 

To shed light on armed crime, the 

National Institute of Justice recently 

sponsored a study that surveyed more 

than 1,800 convicted adult felons (all 

men) incarcerated in 10 States 

throughout the country, The survey 

asked these felons how and why they 

obtain, carry, and use firearms, 

especially in the commission of 

criminal acts. 

This Research in Brief summarizes the 

results and policy implications of the 

study as they pertain to the nature of 

the criminal firearms market, criminal 

firearms preferences, the motivation 

to own and carry guns, and how 

members of the survey sample thought 

they would respond to various types 

of gun regulation. 

These results and implications apply 

only to the particular criminal population studied: serious adult male felons. 

Other groups, such as juvenile offenders, first offenders, female offenders, 

and less serious (nonfelony) adult 

male offenders may have very different patterns of firearms acquisition, 

ownership, and use. Therefore, they 

From the Director 

The armed predators who use guns in 

the course of their crimes are the source 

of much of the violence and fear that 

plague many urban neighborhoods. 

The debate over how to keep guns 

away from criminals has been intense 

and longstanding. Until recently, 

legislators and policymakers have had 

little empirical data to inform the 

debate. 

If we are to achieve the goal of 

separating predators from guns, then 

we need to know how and where they 

obtain their weapons and how they use 

them in their criminal activities. This 

Research in Brief summarizes the 

findings of a National Institute-sponsored study that provided valuable new 

information about these questions. The 

knowledge produced by this study was 

cited by those involved in the policy 

debate over new gun control legislation 

passed by the Congress in 1986. 

Based on interviews with more than 

1,800 incarcerated felons, the study 

found that few of the gun-owning 

felons had bought their guns from a 

retail source. Rather, the majority 

usually obtained them from family 

members or friends or on the street. 

Often they stole them. 

This research cao help in the effort to 

develop more effective strategies to 

keep the predator from weapons of 

terror. The findings suggest that, for 

career criminals at least, vigorous 

enforcement and tougher penalties for 

those who commit crimes with firearms 

may be more effective than regulation. 

Our emphasis ought to be on "use a 

gun, go to jail." 

New technology may also aid in the 

search for solutions. If we could do a 

better job of detecting concealed 

weapons, our emphasis would shift 

from efforts to control weapons at the 

point of purchase to identifying those 

who are carrying and using guns for 

crime so they can be arrested and 

prosecuted. 

NIJ is pursuing research toward a 

weapons-detection system that could 

reliably indicate concealed firearms. 

While much additional testing will be 

required before a system becomes 

.operational, initial indications are 

promising. 

All sides of the debate over gun control 

acknowledge that the use of weapons 

in crime is a major threat to the public 

and a pressing issue for policymakers. 

The National Institute is pleased that 

this research has contributed to informed discussion of thekey issues. 

Advances in the technology of weapons 

detection may help shape new and 

more effective policies to help curb 

violent crime. 

James K. Stewart 

Director 

National Institute of Justice 
may respond to entirely different 

criminal justice initiatives. 

A typology of armed criminals 

To facilitate analysis of the survey, 

the research developed a general 

typology of criminals based on their 

weapon use in crime. The largest 

group (39 percent) within the 7- 

category typology is the unarmed 

criminal, men who had never committed any crime while armed with a 

weapon and who function as a comparison group in most of our analysis. 

Also defined are two groups of 

"armed--not-with-a-gun-criminals" 

(11 percent)--men who had committed armed crimes but never with a 

firearm. Based on the weapon used 

most frequently, this group is further 

divided into knife criminals and 

improvisors, the latter typically armed 

with a variety of ready-to-hand 

weapons. 

The other half of the sample are gun 

criminals, who have been divided into 

four groups based on their frequency 

of gun use in crime: one-time firearm 

users (men who had committed one, 

but only one, gun crime); sporadics 

(men who had committed "a few" gun 

crimes); and twotypes of predators 

(men who had committed many gun 

crimes): handgun and shotgun predators, depending on what kind of gun 

they said they had used most frequently. Table 1 shows the distribution 

of the total sample across these seven 

categories. 

Table 1 also shows the average "total 

criminality" score in each of the seven 

categories. (This score reflects the 

sum of all the crimesa felon reported 

ever having committed, weighted by 

the seriousness of each offense.) The 

results confirm that the felons identified as gun predators are overwhelmingly the most active criminals in the 

sample; the two predator groups 

(handgun and shotgun), who make up 

about 20 percent of the sample, 

account for approximately half the 

sample's total criminality. 

Points of view or opinions expressed in 

this publication are those of the author 

and do not necessarily represent the 

" official position or policies of the U.S. 

Department of Justice. 

Table 1 

Total criminality of offenders by 

typology of weapons used in crime 

Number of Percent of Average "total 

Criminal type offenders total sample criminality" score* 

Total sample 1,874 100 139 

Unarmed criminals 725 39 61 

Armed not-with-a-gun criminals 

Improvisors 79 4 101 " 

Knife criminals 134 7 109 

Gun Criminals 

One-time gun users 257 14 84 

Sporadic gun users 257 14 151 

Handgun predators 321 17 332 

Shotgun predators 101 5 265 

*"Total criminality" is an index measure or score reflecting the sum of all the crimes the felon 

had ever committed (as reported in the study questionnaire) weighted by the seriousness of each 

offense. The index numbers have no intrinsic meaning except that lower numbers mean fewer or 

less serious crimes and higher numbers mean more or more serious ones. The table shows the 

average score on this index for each group. 

The nature of the criminal 

firearms market 

Three-quarters of the sample said they 

had owned one or more firearms at 

some time in their lives. Seventy-nine 

percent of these--more than 1,000- 

said they had owned at least one 

handgun. The handgun owners responded to a number of detailed 

questions about the methods and 

sources they used to acquire their most 

recent handguns. Their answers 

provide previously unavailable details 

describing the nature of the criminal 

gun market. The principalresults: 

(1) Legitimate firearms retailers 

play only a minor role as direct 

sources of handguns for adult felony 

offenders. 

Only about one-sixth of the gunowning felons obtained their most 

recent handguns through a customary 

retail transaction involving a licensed 

firearms dealer. The remainder--five 

out of six--obtained them via informal, off-the-record transactions 

involving friends and associates, 

family members, and various black 

market outlets. The means of acquisi - 

tion from these,~nformal sources 

included cash purchase, swaps and 

trades, borrowing and renting, and 

often theft. The criminal handgun 

market is overwhelmingly dominated 

by informal transactions and theft as 

mechanisms of supply. 

The off-the-record nature of the 

market is further illustrated in the 

responses to a series of questions 

concerning the ease with which these 

men felt they could arm themselves 

upon release from prison. (As convicted felons, of course, all these men 

are legally prohibited from acquiring 

guns upon release, under provisions 

of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and 

the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe 

Streets Act of 1968.) Most of the 

sample (gun owners and nonowners 

alike) thought it would be "no trouble 

at all" to acquire a gun upon release; 

about 80 percent felt they could obtain 

a suitable handgun in a few days or 

less. When asked where they would 

go for guns, their sources were friends, 

the street, and various black market. 

sources. 

These results suggest certain policy 

implications. Policies attempting to 

regulate ~handgun acquisition atthe 
Other titles in the Research in Brief series 

The Research in Brief series, sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, is an ongoing 

effort to present the results of timely criminal justice research in an easy-to-read format. 

The titles listed below address some of the most critical issues in criminal justice today. 

For free single-copy requests, simply photocopy the entire order form (be sure to include 

y0uYffarh~fid address), check offthe titles you want, and mail to the National Institute of 

Justice, Box 6000, Dept. AFB, Rockville, MD 20850, or call toll-free 800-851-3420 

(301-251-5500 in Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Alaska). 

[] 07. AIDS in Prisons and Jails: Issues and Options 

NCJ 100221 

[] 08. Assessing Criminal Justice Needs 

NCJ 94072 

[] 02. Confronting Domestic Violence: The Role of 

Criminal Court Judges 

NCJ 102833 

[] 09. Corrections and the Private Sector 

NCJ 94071 

[] 10. Crime and Mental Disorder 

NCJ 94074 

[] 03. Crime StoppersmA National Evaluation 

NCJ 102292 

[] 11. Criminal Justice Response to Victim Harm 

NCJ 98260 

[] 25. Danger to Police in Domestic Disturbances-- 

A New Look 

NCJ 102634 

[] 12. Drug Use and Pretrial Crime in the District 

of Columbia 

NCJ 94073 

[] 04. Employee Drug Testing Policies in Police 

Departments 

NCJ 102632 

[] 13. Expanding Sentencing Options: A Governor's 

Perspective 

NCJ 96335 

RIB 001 

[] 05. Field Training for Police Officers: State of the Art 

NCJ 102633 

[] 14. Forensic Use of Hypnosis 

NCJ 96336 

[] 15. Growing Role of Private Security 

NCJ 94703 

[] 16. Incapacitating Criminals: Recent Research 

Findings 

NCJ 92644 

[] 17. Interviewing Victims and Witnesses of Crime 

NCJ 99061 

[] 18. Jailing Drunk Drivers: Impact on the Criminal 

Justice System 

NCJ 95437 

[] 19. The Private Sector and Prison Industt:ies 

NCJ 96525 

[] 20. Probation and Felony Offenders 

NCJ 97349 

[] 21. Probing the Links Between Drugs and Crime 

NCJ 96668 

[] 06. Problem-Oriented Policing 

NCJ 102371 

[] 22. Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse: Innovations 

in Practice 

NCJ 99317 

[] 23. Use of Forfeiture Sanctions in Drug Cases 

NCJ 98259 

[] 24. Violence in Schools 

NCJ 92643 

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National Institute of Justice 

Washington. D.C. 20531 

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point of retail sale may be effective in 

preventing some types of criminals 

from acquiring firearms (e.g., juveniles or nonfelony offenders), but they 

are likely to have little effect on the 

most serious handgun-owning felons 

represented in this sample. Hardcore 

felons of the sort studied in this 

research rarely use customary retail 

channels to obtain handguns. 

(2) Gun theft plays a critical role in 

connecting the adult felony offender 

to his firearms supply. 

Half the men in the total sample had 

stolenat least one gun at some time 

in their lives (as shown in Figure 1). 

Many had stolen more than one. A 

few, particularly the more predatory 

felons, had stolen guns in extremely 

large numbers. At least 40 percent and 

perhaps as many as 70 percent of the 

most recent handguns owned by this 

sample were stolen weapons. These 

percentages include not only the guns 

that the felons stole themselves (32 

percent), but also guns that the felons 

knew or believed to have been stolen 

prior to their acquisition of them. 

Like other theft, gun theft appears to 

be an "opportunity" Crime: most gun 

thieves (76 percent) stole guns when 

they came across them, not because 

they were looking specifically for a 

gun to steal. The purpose of most gun 

thefts (70 percent) was to sell or trade 

the gun to someone else, rather than 

to obtain one for personal use. Still, 

most of those who had ever stolen 

guns kept at least one of them for 

personal use, usually because the 

stolen gun was a better quality weapon 

than the gun they were carrying at that 

time. 

Most gun thefts (84 percent) occurred 

in private residences, but thefts from 

"high-volume" sources (retailers, 

wholesalers, shippers, and manufacturers) were also widely reported. 

These high-volume thefts may in fact 

account for a larger share of the total 

volume of stolen guns, due to the 

potentially greater number of guns 

stolen per theft. 

The ideal gun control policy would be 

one that directly affects the illicit user 

but leaves the legitimate user pretty 

much alone. Formulating such a 

policy, however, presupposes a sharp 

distinction between the licit and illicit 

markets, a distinction seriously eroded 

by the heavy volume of gun theft from 

legitimate owners. The survey data 

suggest that a successful policy for 

controlling criminal access to firearms 

must necessarily address the problem 

of gun theft, perhaps including measures for informing legitimate owners 

about the extent and seriousness of 

gun theft and about procedures for 

adequately securing their firearms. 

Criminal firearms preferences 

Many gun control policy proposals are 

targeted to particular classes of firearms: to handguns in general or, 

somewhat more commonly, to certain 

restricted classes of handguns, particularly the small, cheap, low-quality 

ones. The rationale for such proposals 

is two-fold: (1) legitimate gun owners 

have little or no need for or interest in 

such firearms and (2) illegitimate gun 

owners do. 

To assess the nature of the criminal 

demand for firearms, the survey asked 

for information on both the qualities 

the sample preferred in a handgun and 

the characteristics of the most recent 

handgun they had actually owned. 

Contrary to popular belief, neither line 

of questioning revealed much interest 

in small, cheap handguns among the 

adult felons in this sample. Such 

interest as was observed was concentrated among felons who had never 

used firearms to commit crimes. 

The hardened firearms criminals in the 

sample both preferred to carry and 

actually carried relatively large, 

well-made weapons. The most common among the recent handguns 

owned was a Smith and Wesson .38 

equipped with a 4-inch barrel. No 

more than a tliird of the most recent 

handguns owned by criminals would 

qualify as "snubbies" (barrel length of 

3 inches or less), and only about 15 

percent would qualify as "Saturday 

Night Specials." 

Figure 1 

Gun theft by criminal type 

100 

90 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

Unarmed 

Percent who had ever stolen a gun 

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Handgun Shotgun 

predator predator 
While the average price felons paid 

for their most recent handguns was not 

especially high--falling in the $100 

to $200 range--the average quality of 

these guns was relatively high. Presumably, gun prices are heavily 

discounted in the markets exploited by 

these men. 

Analysis of the relationship between 

types of firearms carried and extent of 

criminal activity revealed that the 

more a felon used his guns in crime, 

the higher the quality of the weapon 

he carded. Among the truly predatory 

criminals in the sample, the small, 

cheap handgun was definitely not the 

weapon of choice. 

Much the same results were obtained 

in questions about preferred handgun 

characteristics. In general, far more 

interest was shown in features such as 

accuracy, firepower, traceability, and 

quality of construction, than price or 

size. 

The study concluded from these 

findings that the strategy of purging 

the market of small, cheap handguns 

may be largely irrelevant to the felons 

most l~ely to commit gun crimes. It 

is, of course, possible that such 

handguns are much more important to 

first offenders, juveniles, or other 

classes of criminals. Gun criminals in 

this sample, however, did not have 

much interest in small, cheap handguns. 

The motivation 

to own and carry guns 

One reason criminals acquire and 

carry handguns is because many 

crimes are easier to commit if armed 

than if not. Beyond these obvious 

criminal motivations, however, the 

survey also shows that gun criminals 

own and carry guns because they were 

raised around guns and have owned 

and used them all their lives. 

Most of them associated with other 

men who owned and carried guns as 

well. Furthermore, the majority 

tended to keep their guns loaded at all 

times and to fire them regularly, often 

at other people. Half the men in the 

sample claimed to have fired a gun at 

someone at some time; half also 

claimed to have been fired upon 

(excluding military service in both 

cases). 

In fact, many respondents stated that 

a man who is armed with a gun is 

"prepared for anything that might 

happen"--an opportunity to commit a 

crime or the need to defend oneself 

against the assaults or predations of 

others. Therefore, while handgun 

carrying among felons is in part a 

rational response to the nature of their 

criminal activities, it is, in equal 

measure, an element of the lifestyle 

arising from early socialization and 

from fear. 

Given these results, it is not surprising 

that the major motive acknowledged 

for acquiring and carrying guns was 

self-protection. Concerning their most 

recently owned handgun, 58 percent 

of those who had ever owned a 

handgun cited "self-protection" as a 

very important reason for the acquisition; "to use in my crimes" was very 

important to only 28 percent. ("Selfprotection," in this context .at least, 

must be interpreted with some caution. 

Part of it no doubt implies protection 

against being preyed upon or continually harassed by other criminals who 

are better armed. Another.part implies 

protection against armed victims, 

against the police, and against the 

prospects of apprehension duringa 

crime.) 

In this connection, about two-fifths of 

the sample had at some time in their 

careers encountered an armed victim; 

an equivalent percentage had at some 

time decided not to commit a crime 

because they had reason to suspect 

that the intended victim was armed. 

(These findings, too, must be interpreted with caution. Although the 

survey did not ask who these "intended 

victims" were, it is likely that many 

would be the felons' own "colleagues," since men of the sort studied 

in this research are clearly not above 

preying upon one another.) 

A third of the sample (of gun criminals 

only) made it a practice to carry a gun 

more or less all the time, as shown in 

Figure 2 

Patterns of handgun carrying by 

gun criminals 

100 

90 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

30% • 

19~ 

All the Only when 

time planning 

a crime 

51% 

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Only in 

certain 

situations 

Figure 2. This ranged from about 10 

percent for the one-time gun users to 

more than 50 percent for the handgun 

predators. Another half carded a gun 

whenever the circumstances seemed 

potentially dangerous--when doing a 

drug deal, when going out at night, 

when they were with other men 

carrying guns or, more generally, 

whenever their ability to defend 

themselves might be at issue. Only 

one in five of the gun criminals 

claimed that they carded a gun only 

when they intended to commit a 

specific crime. Consequently, the 

actual use of guns in crimes appears 

to be more a by-product of strongly 

ingrained gun-carrying habits, rather 

than the result of intentional planning 

for armed offenders. 

The response of felons 

to gun policy measures 

Proposals for new gun legislation 

surface with some regularity. The 

survey asked felons how they thought 

they would respond to some of these 

proposed measures. The results are 

obviously conjectural, but nonetheless 

of considerable interest as indicators 

of how felons themselves expect such 

measures would affect them. 
First, the felons were asked what they 

thought they would do if "the cheapest 

handgun you could find cost more 

than you could possibly afford to 

pay." Among gun criminals, most 

said they would either borrow or steal 

the handgun they wanted; others said 

they would respond by carrying 

sawed-off shoulder weapons. 

Next, they were asked what they 

would do in the face of a ban on small, 

cheap handguns. They overwhelmingly responded that they would carry 

bigger and more expensive handguns 

instead. 

Finally, they were questioned about 

their possible response to a complete 

handgun ban. In answer to this question, a majority of the gun criminals-- 

and more than three-quarters of the 

predators (the truly high-rate felons in 

the survey)msaid that they would 

respond by carrying sawed-off shoulder weapons. 

The general pattern is thus one of 

lateral or upward substitution: the 

weapons that gun criminals said they 

would carry under x;arious hypothetical firearms bans were either just as 

lethal as, or more lethal than, the 

weapons they would have otherwise 

carded. The message these men seem 

to be sending is that their felonious 

activities would not suffer for lack of 

appropriate armament. Their intent, it 

seems, would be to find substitutes 

that might be somewhat less convenient, but would be at least as 

effective as their current weaponry. 

Given that their response predictions 

are accurate, the implication of these 

findings is that many commonly 

proposed gun control measures could 

well prove to have unanticipated and 

counter-productive consequencesat least among the serious adult felons 

studied here. 

Implications for gun policies 

Findings from the survey suggest the 

following: 

• Controls imposed at the point Of 

retail sale would not be effective in 

preventing the acquisition of guns by 

serious adult felons because these 

felons rarely obtain their guns through 

customary retail outlets. 

• Since theft of guns is a predominant 

means by which felons procure firearms, the 35 to 50 million handguns 

currently possessed by legitimate 

private owners represent a potentially 

rich source for criminal handgun 

acquisition. An effective criminal gun 

control policy must therefore, Of 

necessity, confront the issue of firearms theft. At a minimum, there 

should be programs to educate the 

gun-owning public about the importance of adequately securing their 

guns. 

• Among the most predatOry felons, 

gun ownership and carrying is seen as 

essential because they fear what the 

prospects of an unarmed life on the 

streets would mean for their physical 

safety and security. For this group of 

most serious offenders, enhanced 

sanctioning policies would be unlikely 

to pose much threat; for them, the cost 

of being caught unarmed in a dangerous situation would be many times 

greater than the cost of a few years in 

prison. 

• For less predatory felons, however, 

sentence enhancement policies do 

seem to have an important deterrent 

effect, since a sizeable majority of the 

felons who do not use guns in crime 

cite "stiffer penalties" as a very 

important reason for their decision not 

to carry firearms. 

• Finally l the survey findings suggest 

that, at least for the serious adult 

felons included in this sample, certain 

commonly proposed gun-banning 

measures could have strongly undesirable conseq.uences, resulting in the 

substitution of more powerful and 

more lethal firearms. Gun-banning 

policies may be responded to differently by other types of offenders, 

however, and could represent a more 

effective deterrentto firearms use by 

juveniles, nonfelony offenders, and 

other types of criminals. 

James D. Wright of the University 

of Massachusetts was the principal 

investigator on a study of firearms 

use in crime, sponsored by the 

National Institute of Justice and 

published by the Institute in-July1985. A more complete version has 

recently been published as Armed 

and Considered Dangerous: A 

Survey .of Felons and Their Firearms by James D. Wright and Peter 

H. Rossi (Hawthorne, New York: 

Aldine Publishing Co., i986). 

5