![]() Much of this serious violence is generated by guns that end up in the wrong hands. Rates of murder, robbery, and aggravated assault are much higher in large cities than elsewhere. Gun violence remains a serious problem in the USA, with some 10,226 gun homicide victims 1 and 326,090 victims 2 of nonfatal violent firearms crimes in 2009. We find that criminals rely upon a diverse set of illegal diversion pathways to acquire guns, gun traffickers usually divert small numbers of guns, newer guns are diverted through close-to-retail diversions from legal firearms commerce, and that a diverse set of gun trafficking indicators are needed to identify and shut down gun trafficking pathways. In this paper, we present new data to address three key arguments used by skeptics to undermine research on illegal gun market dynamics. Critics suggest that the results of firearm trace data and gun trafficking investigation studies cannot be used to understand the illegal supply of guns to criminals and, therefore, that regulatory and enforcement efforts designed to disrupt illegal firearms markets are futile in addressing criminal access to firearms. The burden of gun violence in urban areas is particularly high. Thousands of Americans are killed by gunfire each year, and hundreds of thousands more are injured or threatened with guns in robberies and assaults.
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