Last month we talked about how the black market exists on the dark web in Australia for gun buyers in the no-guns land down under. Here in the U.S., Chicago is the poster child of restricted gun rights coexisting with a high murder rate.
I stumbled on this link while going through old bookmarks stored in my browser. It's titled How Chicago gets its guns from October of last year. It reads like a human interest story about someone who had a spell of bad luck. But regarding the gun market, here's an excerpt which summarizes the relevant part:
Most of the guns police seize in Chicago come from Indiana and other states where firearms laws are more lax, police and researchers have found. After they were purchased legally, most were sold or loaned or stolen. Typically, individuals or small groups are involved in the dealing, not organized trafficking rings, experts say.
Unlike the drug trade — often dominated by powerful cartels or gangs — illegal gun markets operate more like the way teenagers get beer, “where every adult is potentially a source,” said Philip Cook, a researcher at the University of Chicago Crime Lab who’s also a Duke University professor.
Under pressure to respond to the violence, law enforcement has focused on making examples of people caught selling, buying or possessing guns. But authorities acknowledge that these cases do little to stem the flow of guns into the city.
With so many guns individually owned in the U.S., should a law ever get passed that would require turning them in it wouldn't do much to reduce gun ownership. A black market would pop up that would make the Chicago market look like a garage sale.
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2:14 PM 4/9/2018
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