Disproportionate sales of crime guns among licensed handgun retailers in the United States: a case-control study.
OBJECTIVE
To determine risk factors among licensed firearm retailers for disproportionate sales of handguns that are later subjected to ownership tracing, generally after use in crime.


METHODS
Case-control; the study period was 1998-2003. Cases were all eligible firearm retailers whose handguns were later traced at a rate that significantly (p<0.05) exceeded the expected value. Controls were a 4:1 random sample of the remainder. Data were obtained from sales and tracing records for 1998-2003 and site visits conducted August-December, 2004.


METHODS
60 cases and 240 controls, from the 573 retailers in California selling >or= 50 handguns annually during the study period.


METHODS
Status as a case. Odds ratios were used to measure relative risk.


RESULTS
In multivariate analyses, cases had larger sales volumes, sold inexpensive handguns more often, had a higher percentage of sales denied because the prospective purchasers were prohibited from owning firearms, and were more likely to be in an urban area, in or near a city with a policy of tracing all recovered crime guns. The effects of several risk factors, including status as a pawnbroker and sales to law enforcement personnel, appeared to be mediated by purchaser characteristics for which denied sales are a proxy measure.


CONCLUSIONS
A number of factors-most of them characteristics of the retailers or of their handgun purchasers, and most of them available in existing data-were linked to disproportionate sales of handguns that are later used in crime.
Wintemute
G J
GJ
Violence Prevention Research Program, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA. gjwintemute@ucdavis.edu
D000328:Adult; D002140:California; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003132:Commerce / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003415:Crime / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D005389:Firearms / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008004:Licensure; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors