The states with the weakest gun laws are the top ten sources of guns recovered in out-of-state crimes.
That's the finding of a new report called "Trace the Guns: the Link Between Gun Laws and Interstate Gun Trafficking" which ranks Indiana 8th in terms of exported guns.
The report was released today by a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns. That group includes Mayor Richard. M. Daley of Chicago, Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl of Evanston and Mayor Henderson Yarbrough Sr. of Maywood.
The report concludes ten states are responsible for 49% of the guns exported to other states and used in crimes in 2009.
The top ten states in order of their rankings from 1 - 10 are: Mississippi, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alaska, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Nevada, and Georgia.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In a press release announcing the report findings he said, "The stakes are high: 12,000 people per year are murdered with guns in the United States. There is urgent work to be done by policy makers at all levels to strengthen enforcement of the laws we have on the books, and to close gaps in state and federal law."
The report recommends ten laws states should enact to curb gun trafficking. Illinois has enacted all but one of those laws. Mississippi has enacted only one.
Working with ATF figures, the report used "time to crime" as an indicator of whether guns are moved across state lines by gun traffickers. For example, 24.4% of guns sold in Indiana have a short time-to-crime. That means 24.4% of guns sold in Indiana were used in an out-of-state crime in 2009.
Other key numbers in the report include the number of guns exported per 100,000 people. The national average is 14.1. In Indiana, the number is 31.3. In Mississippi, the state ranking highest in number of exported guns, there are 50.3 guns exported per 100,000 people.
Illinois is a net importer of guns, as opposed to an exporter. Only 6.5 of the guns sold here are exported, according to the study.
The report has an interactive map for specific findings on each state. Click here to go to that map.
