Study: South Supplies Guns To Out-Of-State Crooks

A new congressional study using data from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms shows that a handful of states, most in the South, with weak gun control laws are responsible for supplying a large percentage of the guns used in crimes in other states.

The study found that four states - Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas - accounted for a quarter of all guns seized that were acquired outside the state where they were used in crimes.

Altogether, the states with the loosest gun-control laws accounted for 54.2 percent of all the out-of-state guns traced to crimes in 1996, the report said.

The report, prepared by the staff of Rep. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., also found that “gunrunners use major interstate highways as their smuggling routes,” especially I-95, which runs from southern Florida to Maine, bringing guns from Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, to New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, and I-55, which runs through Mississippi to Chicago.

Florida, which has no restrictions on the purchase of handguns beyond the five-day waiting period mandated by federal law, was responsible for selling 1,243 guns that ended up being used by criminals in other states in 1996, the most of any state, according to the study.

Schumer said the report was “the first study that shows conclusively that gun control works for the simple reason that states with weak gun control laws are exporting guns to states with tough gun control laws.”

“If the laws didn’t work, the flows would be even,” Schumer said.

To this end, Schumer said he would introduce legislation today to create a new federal crime of gunrunning.