Orange County gun buyers, whose weapons purchases surpass the California average by almost half, bought more than twice as many handguns last year as they did seven years ago, according to newly released figures from the state Department of Justice.
Handgun sales in Orange County, second only to those in Los Angeles County, are projected to have topped 50,600 last year, compared to only 25,026 in 1986, when record-keeping began. Elsewhere in the state, handgun sales over the same seven-year period increased by roughly 70%, compared to the 102% increase in Orange County.
Local police officials have long maintained that the proliferation of handguns in the county is partly to blame for the dramatic increase in reported violent crimes.
Overall, serious crime in Orange County has actually decreased on a per-capita basis over the past seven years. But crimes of violence--murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault--soared by 32% during the same period.
The increase in violent crime, however, could be somewhat exaggerated due to a change in the state's crime reporting policy in 1986: Serious domestic assaults--previously reported in a separate category--were considered to be aggravated assaults, one of the eight serious felony crimes tracked nationally by the FBI.
No one contends, however, that the dramatic increases in murders--particularly gang-related slayings--are any less than they are reported to be.
It was because of the large number of violent crimes committed here that Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen this week selected Orange County--once considered a haven from its more violent neighbor to the north--as one of 10 localities nationwide where federal authorities will begin investigating the origin of firearms used in crimes. The effort will look at how the weapons were brought in, who transferred them, and where they came from.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice study, the 10 metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles and San Diego counties, account for 23% of the nation's felonies--crimes serious enough to warrant prison terms instead of time in a local jail.
Once the new federal investigation of firearms is completed, authorities may have more concrete answers to questions at the heart of a national debate over the relationship between legal firearms sales and violent crime. Among the questions to be answered are: Do criminals use handguns purchased from firearms dealers? Are these firearms dealers the sporting goods stores or the pawn shops that advertise guns in the Yellow Pages? Or do criminals get their weapons from a less visible network of arms merchants?
