Study Finds NRA Was Right: Vast Majority Of Legal Gun Owners Are Law-Abiding

posted on July 29, 2016

We’ve long known that concealed-carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding people in the country. But a new study released by the University of Pittsburgh suggests that firearm owners in general are similarly law-abiding.

The study focused on tracing the origins of the 893 guns recovered from crime scenes in 2008. “All guns start out as legal guns,” lead researcher Anthony Fabio told the Washington Post. “As a public-health person, I’d like to be able to figure out that path.” 

Once all guns were traced, researchers found that in roughly 80 percent of cases, the perpetrator wasn’t the lawful owner of the crime gun, but was in illegal possession of someone else’s firearm. About a third of those guns had been stolen—but researchers suspect that a large portion of the remainder came from illegal straw purchases. 

Previous studies have come to similar conclusions, but this research serves to even further disprove the idea that making it harder for law-abiding Americans to purchase guns will do anything to stop crime.

Latest

Beretta 30X Tomcat
Beretta 30X Tomcat

Gun Review | Beretta 30X Tomcat

Beretta did an excellent job of updating this classic. It has tweaks, but retains the features that made it so popular in the first place.

Voters Are Fighting Back

Anti-gun jurisdictions display indifference to crime, but voters are fighting back.

President Trump Signs Huge Executive Order on Guns

President Trump is moving fast to find and root out any remaining anti-Second Amendment rules, actions and legal positions still in place.

How Gun Pollsters Deceive

When the misleading language of gun-control groups is used in polls, it should come as no surprise that the results don’t map properly onto the real world.

A Far-Left Gun-Control Activist Ascends to DNC Leadership

To see how radical Hogg is, all we have to do is review some of his social-media posts.

The Armed Citizen® February 7, 2025

True stories of the right to keep and bear arms



Get the best of America's 1st Freedom delivered to your inbox.