BMC Public Health 2009, 9:199 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/199 14 12 10 o i t a r te 8 a r e cen 6 d i c n I 4 2 0 Major Cities Other Cities Suburbs Small Towns 1993 1994 1995 1997 1998 1999 1996 Year 1FA9ing9nu3ur–ae1l9g29u9n homicide rates as a function of the prevalence of federal firearms licensees (FFLs) in U.S. counties, by county type, Annual gun homicide rates as a function of the prevalence of federal firearms licensees (FFLs) in U.S. counties, by county type, 1993–1999. not far from the gun dealer where they were first obtained. Approximately 62 percent of crime guns traced by the ATF were first purchased from FFLs in the state where they were recovered by police, one-quarter (25.9%) of crime guns were recovered in the county where they were pur- chased, and 10.5 percent were recovered in a county adja- cent to the county of purchase, almost all of which were in the same state (9.5%).[6] Moreover, almost one-third (32.2%) of traced crime guns are recovered by police within 10 miles of the FFL where they were first pur- chased, and over one-third (34.3%) are recovered between 11 and 250 miles of the FFL where they were first purchased.[6,8] Thus, an FFL appears most likely to have an effect in the home or surrounding counties. A recent study showing that gun dealers in or near major cities are at substantially elevated risk of selling guns used in crime may help to explain the strong positive associa- tion found here between FFL prevalence and gun homi- cide in major cities specifically.[31] Also, we found that the association between FFLs and gun homicides in major cities grew stronger from 1993 to 1999. This finding is consistent with what resulted when in the 1990s the fed- eral government took steps to regulate FFLs more closely. Before this time, the process to obtain a license to sell fire- arms was appreciably simpler.[4] The Gun Control Act of 1968 required the ATF to issue a license to any applicant who was at least 21 years old, had premises from which they intended to conduct business, and who otherwise was not prohibited by law from purchasing a firearm.[4] At the time, the fee to obtain or annually renew an FFL was $10. The ATF received an average of 33,000 applications for FFLs each year over the decade that followed. Fully 169,052 FFLs were active by 1978. That number increased steadily thereafter and by 1992 reached a national peak of 284,117 FFLs. Not all FFLs were legitimate businesses, however. Any FFL enabled the holder to purchase large numbers of firearms, often at wholesale prices, and to buy from sellers in other states.[6] Many of these dealers made few if any registered sales, suggesting they were not truly engaged in the business of firearms dealing as required by federal law, and a substantial proportion of the extant FFLs were not in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.[4] With the system becoming increasingly difficult for the ATF to monitor, Congress acted and in 1993 and 1994 increased the FFL application fee 20-fold to $200 and imposed new laws intended to shut down inactive or cor- rupt FFLs.[4] In the years that followed, the number of FFLs nationally dropped from about 260,000 in 1993 to 80,000 in 1999. Our effect estimates suggest that the asso- ciation between FFL prevalence and homicide may have been weaker in the early 1990s than in later years because there existed a large number of low volume dealers who contributed less to the supply of firearms.[4] Hence, with FFLs over time becoming a better measure of the exposure under study, the actual magnitude of the association Page 7 of 10 (page number not for citation purposes)