This runs counter to the left’s frequent claim that Chicago has a gun problem because other states do not have gun controls as stringent as those in Illinois.
According to the ATF data, 22,973 firearms were recovered or traced in Illinois in 2023. Of those, 9,147 were from Illinois and, in a distant second, 2,796 were from Indiana.
Beyond Indiana there were not even 1,000 guns recovered or traced with origins in another single state. (E.g., there were 952 recovered or traced from Missouri, 663 from Wisconsin, 390 from Tennessee, etc.)
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Kostas Moros commented on the ATF data via X, writing in part: “Also, note that a gun being from another state does not necessarily mean anything. Someone may have moved to Illinois, then had the gun stolen there, where it was used in a crime. The average time-to-crime of an Illinois traced gun is over 6 years, so the idea that this is guns being bought up in southern states then shipped to Chicago to be issued for service in gang warfare is ridiculous.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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