In an effort to learn more, The Trace filed an information request with the CPD’s Research and Development Division, asking for the make, model, and caliber of all the crime guns collected in Chicago in 2014. But less has been known about what kinds of firearms, specifically, are favored by the city’s criminals. Research by the Chicago police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives paints a detailed picture of how crime guns flow into the city. Of the remaining crime guns, nearly half were purchased at three gun shops just outside the city. A study released last year by the city found that almost 60 percent of firearms recovered at Chicago crime scenes were first bought in states that do not require background checks for Internet or gun show sales, like neighboring Indiana and Wisconsin.

The problem is that most of the guns used in crimes in Chicago come from neighboring states with lax gun laws. As President Obama has pointed out, that isn’t a failing of the city’s gun laws. In Chicago, the rate was 277.ĭespite having some of the toughest gun regulations of any city in the country, Chicago continues to record thousands of shootings per year. In 2012, Los Angeles police seized 122 illegal guns for every 100,000 residents, while New York cops confiscated 39. Indeed, officers in Chicago recover more guns than their counterparts in New York and Los Angeles - two cities with larger populations - combined.

For the city’s police department, the remarkable haul wasn’t unusual. That total meant the department was seizing about 19 guns a day - or about one gun every 74 minutes. By early December of last year, the Chicago Police Department had confiscated 6,521 illegal guns in 2015.

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