Connecting the Dots of Gun Crime: Networks of Firearms, Incidents, and People

• In Event: Gun Markets and Public Attitudes Towards Gun Regulation

Abstract

The advent of ballistics imaging, and of the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), has enabled law enforcement to better and more quickly determine when a single firearm is used in multiple shooting incidents. In Syracuse, recovered firearms, bullets, shot shells, and cartridge cases are routinely submitted to the local forensic laboratory, which produces timely information on “multiple-use firearms” (MUF), firearms that are each linked to two or more incidents. Any one incident could involve a fatal or non-fatal shooting, a confirmed shots-fired incident (in which no one is struck by a bullet), or a recovered firearm – seized from an individual in possession of the firearm or otherwise found or turned in. Thus the incidents associated with any MUF form a network – a set of incidents that are linked to one another by the firearm. We explore the insights into patterns of gun violence that can be gained by considering the relationships among several types of networks: networks of incidents; networks of people involved in the incidents; and the broader social networks of people associated with the MUF.

Authors

• Madison Bryant, The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc.

• Kelly J. Becker, The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc.

• Sarah J. McLean, The John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc.

• Robert E. Worden, University at Albany / John F. Finn Institute