Criminal Weapon Selection

[HCM]

Note "seized from criminals" and "carried by criminals" are not the same thing. Criminals have home defense guns, too. Of course they are not biased toward easily concealable guns. They aren't carrying them most of the time.

That's the advantage of being on offense, you can get your equipment prior to game time. That's the disadvantage of being a felon, you have to decide when it's worth the risk of being made just having the gun. The end result is guns that sit in nearby stashes more often then carried.

As far as criminals "practicing more"...maybe. I'm almost positive that's from self-reporting studies, though, and likely includes going into the alley and cranking off a few random shots. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the shitheads are buying a "clip full" of bullets at a time, they aren't shooting in bulk for practice.

^^^ all of this.

[blues]

Oh for the good old days when bad guys had "gats".

[willie]

This week at the lgs I observed a gangbanger take delivery of a Yugoslavian Russian clone firing the 7.62x25 round. These are sold on line and shipped to dealers for $220 plus shipping. I examined the pistol before the customer arrived. Condition was excellent. Income tax money will soon flow back to town. Draco season will soon begin. Taurus pistols will sell. People who can't spell AR or AK will begin buying both.

[andre3k]

I had to go through my phone and looks at crappy photos taken at night but here's part of my tally for 2019. These are the only ones that I cared to take a picture of.

Ruger LCP
Glock 17 or 22 with autosear (can't remember which)
Kimber 1911
Springfield XD (pretty sure it was a 40)
Glock 17 with autosear
9mm Hi Point
Feg Pa-63
Kel-Tec P32
2x Taurus G2C (2 identical guns from 1 turd)
Radical Firearms 5.56 AR Pistol with a drum magazine
Sig P320 Compact 9mm
Glock 17 Gen 2
Ak-47
AR Pistol (Unknown brand but with the 3rd hole drilled)
Springfield XD Mod 2 9mm
Astra Revolver
Smith & Wesson 642


As you can see the choice in weapons is all over the place. The number of full auto conversions did surprise me though. Almost all of these were taken from documented gang members, about half were found to be stolen.

[Horseman]

The presence of the Ruger .22 surprised me, perhaps it’s just a function of the gun’s popularity.

A whole boxcar full of Ruger firearms was stolen from a supposedly "secure" rail yard siding, in Chicago, some years back. This may skew the brand numbers a bit.

[Cypher]

A whole boxcar full of Ruger firearms was stolen from a supposedly "secure" rail yard siding, in Chicago, some years back. This may skew the brand numbers a bit.

Or not.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...stolen/149322/

A convicted felon was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for stealing over 100 guns from a cargo train that was parked overnight on the city’s South Side.

On April 12, 2015, 47-year-old Alexander Peebles and seven other men burglarized the train while it was parked in an Avalon Park neighborhood railyard, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois. The train was traveling from a Ruger factory in New Hampshire to Spokane, Washington.

[Horseman]

Or not.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...stolen/149322/

Good catch on the timeline of that. It wouldn't work for a 2014 study, would it?

Expect a few more Rugers in upcoming stats...they didn't get all the stolen ones back from that caper, apparently.

[Cypher]

They didn't get all the stolen ones back from that caper, apparently.

I looked at several articles on that particular theft and the information about how many guns were recovered was very conspicuously absent.

I'm guessing none

[HCM]

A whole boxcar full of Ruger firearms was stolen from a supposedly "secure" rail yard siding, in Chicago, some years back. This may skew the brand numbers a bit.

If you think a boxcar full will skew the brand numbers you are seriously underestimating the number of guns in criminal hands and the number stolen by other means.

Ruger sells a lot of guns in general and lots of inexpensive guns in particular. Hence it would be expected they would heavily represented. I’ve seen mostly LCPs, LC9s. Ruger P series (p85, P90, P94 etc) used to be common crime guns but have fallen off a bit over the years. Mostly replaced with the SW SD9 and SD 40.

[HCM]

I had to go through my phone and looks at crappy photos taken at night but here's part of my tally for 2019. These are the only ones that I cared to take a picture of.

Ruger LCP
Glock 17 or 22 with autosear (can't remember which)
Kimber 1911
Springfield XD (pretty sure it was a 40)
Glock 17 with autosear
9mm Hi Point
Feg Pa-63
Kel-Tec P32
2x Taurus G2C (2 identical guns from 1 turd)
Radical Firearms 5.56 AR Pistol with a drum magazine
Sig P320 Compact 9mm
Glock 17 Gen 2
Ak-47
AR Pistol (Unknown brand but with the 3rd hole drilled)
Springfield XD Mod 2 9mm
Astra Revolver
Smith & Wesson 642


As you can see the choice in weapons is all over the place. The number of full auto conversions did surprise me though. Almost all of these were taken from documented gang members, about half were found to be stolen.

You can thank wish.com for the auto sears. We have recovered a quite a few including one after an OIS and a G23 with one which was pawned. The pawnshop didn’t know what it was and had it out for sale.

XDs, Glocks and SW SD guns are well represented as are Ruger LCPs, SCCYs craptastic AR pistols and AKs.