How often are Saturday Night Specials used in crimes?
No agency keeps comprehensive statistics about the make and model of guns used in crimes. But one indicator of their use in crimes is the data about the guns which law enforcement ask the ATF to trace. One study, using ATF tracing data, suggests that guns manufactured by the ‘Ring of Fire’ companies are 3.4 times more likely to be used in crimes than guns made by the “Old Line” companies like Colt, Smith and Wesson, or Sturm Ruger. Each year the ATF releases a list of the top ten traced guns. In 1995 six of the top ten guns traced were made by ‘Ring of Fire’ companies.
