Criminals Circumvent Gun Control Laws : Justice Dept. Says Lawbreakers Get Firearms Despite Restrictions

A survey of long-term prisoners indicates that restrictive laws do not discourage handgun ownership by career criminals, who get their weapons more often by theft or under-the-counter deals than by legal purchases in legitimate stores, the Justice Department reported Sunday.

The report concluded that even though curbs on legitimate retail sales of guns have failed to attain the goal of keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals, they still “may serve a useful preventive function.”

Ideally, it said, ways should be found to stifle the extralegal firearms market, but it found “some reason to doubt whether any politically acceptable, implementable, effective and constitutional method of intervening in the informal market can be found.”

The report said a sampling of 1,874 men serving time for felonies in 11 state prisons found that 75% said they expected little or no trouble if they tried to obtain a handgun after their release from prison. The men overwhelmingly preferred high-quality large-caliber weapons to small-bore, cheap “Saturday night specials,” the report said.

Ways of Acquiring Guns

The study also found that 57% of the men had owned a handgun at the time of the arrest that put them behind bars; that 32% of these guns had been stolen and only 21% had been bought through legitimate retail outlets. Another 26% were acquired in black-market deals and the remainder were described as gifts from family or friends.

In addition, 28% of the men who said they had owned guns reported that they acquired the weapons specifically to commit a crime, 39% of those questioned said they had never used any kind of weapon for crime and another 11% said they used other weapons, such as knives or clubs.

The 52-page report, entitled “The Armed Criminal in America,” was sponsored and issued by the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department’s principal research agency.

In a statement that appeared to reflect the Reagan Administration’s opposition to stiffer federal gun control laws, James K. Stewart, director of the National Institute of Justice, said: “Because guns are so widely available to criminals from non-retail sources, it may be that more vigorous law enforcement and longer prison terms for those committing crimes with firearms are the most effective strategies for curbing violence.”

‘Help Guide the Debate’

In a telephone interview, Stewart described the report as the first study focused on the ways professional criminals get guns and said he expected it would “help guide the debate” on gun control. The report will be forwarded to state legislators and members of Congress and will figure in Justice Department testimony, he said.

The gun control fight is now focused on the Democratic-run House Judiciary Committee, which is considering a bill passed by the Republican-controlled Senate that permits interstate sales of handguns, which have been barred since 1968.

David Warner of the Institute for Legislative Action of the National Rifle Assn. said the report confirmed “what we’ve been saying all along”--that controls “could only be imposed on people who would obey them.”

Josh Sugermann, communications director for the Coalition to Ban Handguns, said he agreed with the report to the extent that “in a nation with 50 million handguns, if you want one, you can get one without buying it legally, often by stealing it.” But he said the group’s goal remains “a nationwide ban on the sale and possession of handguns,” with exceptions for law enforcement agencies and military users.