Is gun usage a common form of gang violence?
The use of firearms is a major feature of gang violence. Gang members are far more likely than other delinquents to carry guns and to use them. In the 2000 NYGS, 84 percent of the gang-problem jurisdictions reported at least one occurrence of firearm use by one or more gang members in an assault crime (Egley and Arjunan, 2002). In a Rochester, New York, study, the rate of gun carrying was about ten times higher for gang members than it was for nongang juvenile offenders (Thornberry et al., 2003). Gang members who owned and/or carried guns also committed about ten times more violent crimes than one would expect from their numbers in the sample population.
