It is common knowledge on the streets of Camden that the streets are full of guns for sale and that these guns have usually made their way to the city from Philadelphia. Camden is in New Jersey, which has relatively stringent gun laws. Philadelphia lies in a different state, Pennsylvania, with much more relaxed gun laws, albeit less than 10 minutes across a bridge. Generally straw buyers are able to buy guns legitimately in Philly and then cross the border to sell them illegally, making Camden perpetually one of the most crime-ridden cities in the United States.
Another city with a high gun crime rate is Washington D.C. Again, DC has relatively strict gun laws, but it is connected by its metro and bus system (and is also walking distance) to Virginia, which has much more relaxed gun laws.
St. Louis is a curious city, straddled between two states: Missouri and Illinois. It is also one of the cities with the highest gun crime rates in the country. Curiously, most of the gun crime is concentrated in East St. Louis, which is in Illinois. Illinois has some of the strictest (if not the strictest) gun control laws in the country, while Missouri, just across the river, has quite relaxed laws.
These cities aren’t enough to prove anything, but we believe they are enough to warrant further study. Could it be that living in a place with strict restrictions on gun ownership, while being able to access guns very easily (and therefore resell and/or share them) raises the gun crime rate? If so, does this mean we should revisit prior studies where we’ve tested one city or state at a time (think Washington D.C.), proclaiming gun control to be useless? It may be worth another look.
Tools for further study:
Gun Laws in the United States (by state)
Ranking of US cities (by crime rate)
