Report

Who is Manufacturing the Guns Used in Crimes?

City-Level Data on Crime Gun Recoveries

9.26.2024

Last Updated: 12.16.2025

On November 4, 2024, Chicago police officer Enrique Martinez was shot and killed while performing a traffic stop. As Officer Martinez approached the driver-side door, an occupant in the passenger seat began firing a converted, fully automatic pistol. The reckless and rapid gunfire first struck the driver in the head, arms, and hands, killing him. The shooting continued, striking Officer Martinez five times. He was taken to the hospital and did not survive. Because of an illegal machine-gun conversion device, the shooter was able to fire at least 14 rounds and take two lives in a matter of seconds.¹

Executive Summary

The gun industry has long avoided taking responsibility for the use of its products in violence and other crimes. Despite receiving notifications from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) when their guns are recovered and traced,² manufacturers often deny knowing how frequently their firearms are used to inflict harm on communities.³ Instead they continue to produce increasingly deadly weapons and embrace dangerous advertising tactics as they generate an estimated $9 billion in revenue annually.⁴ Meanwhile, the US gun violence epidemic costs the country tens of thousands of lives and an estimated $557 billion every year.⁵

To combat the gun industry’s attempts to shirk responsibility, the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund embarked on a city-by-city collection of data on recovered crime guns, seeking to answer the question of which gun manufacturers’ weapons are showing up at US crime scenes. This report incorporates new information from our third year of data collection, which was made possible by Everytown’s long-standing coalition of mayors fighting to end gun violence: Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Updated analyses now include 349,322 crime guns recovered in US cities representing nearly 30 million people.⁶

Key findings from Everytown’s analysis include:

Of the over 20,000 licensed gun manufacturers in the United States, four of them—Glock, Taurus, Smith & Wesson, and Ruger—accounted for 55 percent of the guns recovered in crimes in 2024.⁷
Glock pistols were recovered at crime scenes nearly twice as often as guns made by the second-leading manufacturer, Taurus.⁸
Following litigation and regulatory and legislative fixes, recoveries in 2024 of ghost guns manufactured by Polymer 80 declined by 43 percent from a peak in 2022.⁹
Despite recent declines in gun homicides and crime gun recoveries, deadlier weapons and innovations—including assault weapons, machine-gun conversion devices, and 3D-printed guns—are showing up at more crime scenes.¹⁰

This report adds to the growing evidence about gun manufacturers’ products and dangerous emerging technology being used in crimes.¹¹ It highlights the urgency for manufacturers and policymakers to take actions such as implementing codes of conduct for firearm retailers, cutting off irresponsible actors in the firearm supply chain, supporting the innovation and uptake of safety features, and advertising products responsibly, because the best time to prevent gun violence is before it happens.

Introduction

Gun homicides have decreased over the past few years, and so have the number of recovered crime guns. But many cities still have persistently high rates of gun violence as the gun industry continues to rake in billions of dollars without consequence¹² by flooding communities with ever more deadly weapons. While the gun industry has been given extraordinary immunity from liability for many consequences of gun violence, the US continues to pay the high price of more than 100,000 people shot and killed or wounded every year, costing the country an estimated $557 billion.

Crime guns are those recovered by law enforcement due to their owners’ illegal possession or because they are suspected of having been used in a crime. Once recovered, ATF traces them to determine their original manufacturer, dealer, retail purchaser, and connections to other crimes.¹³ Everytown’s analyses of the most recent ATF data reveal that from 2019 to 2023, 1.7 million crime guns were recovered and traced in the United States.¹⁴ Half of these crime guns were recovered less than three years after being purchased, and over a quarter were trafficked across state lines after their initial retail sale.¹⁵ Taken together, the findings strongly suggest that these guns were purchased with the intent to use them in a crime or traffic them to the illegal market.

50%

Of the over 1.7 million crime guns traced from 2019 to 2023, 50 percent were used in a crime within just three years of their initial retail sale.

Everytown Research analysis of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, “Firearms Trace Data,” 2019–2023, https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/data-statistics.

Last updated: 12.12.2025

Following Everytown’s publication of earlier versions of this report, ATF released nationwide aggregate data on crime gun manufacturers from 2017 to 2021¹⁶ and an update through 2023.¹⁷ Everytown’s new analysis of city data provides a preview of more recent trends through 2024, new data on the growing issue of machine-gun conversion devices and 3D-printed guns, and specific solutions to hold the gun industry accountable for its role in ongoing gun violence.

Gun Manufacturer Trends in 52 Cities

To answer the question of who manufactures the guns most often recovered at today’s crime scenes, Everytown, in partnership with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, embarked on a city-by-city collection of data on recovered crime guns, sorted by manufacturer. For inclusion in this analysis, 52 US cities in 27 states provided Everytown with aggregate data on the manufacturers of recovered crime guns. Forty-nine of these cities provided data for 2024, and 43 of them were able to share data covering the past five years, reflecting a total of 349,322 recovered crime guns.¹⁸

Top Manufacturer of Recovered Crime Guns in 2024 by City

Source: Everytown Research analysis of data provided by 49 police departments on crime guns recovered in 2024.

In 2024, four gun manufacturers accounted for more than half of the recovered crime guns: Glock (24.3 percent), Taurus (13.2 percent), Smith & Wesson (11.5 percent), and Ruger (6.5 percent).¹⁹ Although the specific percentages changed slightly from 2023, the proportion of guns recovered from most manufacturers remained fairly consistent. The only exception is Glock, whose firearms increased from 18 percent of recovered crime guns in 2019 to 24 percent in 2024. The concentration of crime gun recoveries among these four companies is particularly notable given that the United States has roughly 6,000 active firearm manufacturers.²⁰

Crime Guns by Manufacturer in 2024²¹

Source: Everytown Research analysis of data 49 US police departments provided on crime guns recovered in 2024.

This aligns with recent ATF data, which found that Glock was the top manufacturer of recovered and traced pistols in the United States from 2017 to 2021, followed by Smith & Wesson, Taurus, and Ruger.²² A 2025 report by the California Department of Justice also found that for the third year in a row, Glock, Smith & Wesson, and Ruger manufactured over one-third of crime guns recovered by law enforcement in the state.²³

Glocks were by far the leading gun of choice for people who committed crimes in 2024. Glock pistols have been the most common firearms recovered at crime scenes for at least the past five years. In 2024, nearly twice as many Glocks were recovered as guns made by the second-most common manufacturer, Taurus.²⁴

Nearly twice as many Glocks were recovered at crime scenes in 2024 as guns made by the second-most common manufacturer.

Source: Everytown Research analysis of data 49 police departments provided on crime guns recovered in 2024.

Last updated: 12.12.2025

The reasons for Glock’s popularity are multifold. Glock produces relatively low-cost, easy-to-use, durable pistols that can easily be converted into machine guns and are sold through retailers known to be the top suppliers of crime guns. Such pistols can also accept high-capacity magazines and lack more traditional safety mechanisms and require a lighter trigger pull than other handguns,¹ selling points for some people who intend to commit crimes and other consumers.

Recoveries of Polymer 80 ghost guns dropped precipitously for the second straight year in 2024.²⁵ Following the implementation of the ATF ghost gun rule²⁶—as well as a wave of new laws regulating ghost guns enacted at the state level and local lawsuits—Polymer 80, formerly the largest producer of ghost gun kits, shuttered in 2024. As a result, in 2024 recoveries of Polymer 80 ghost guns were 43 percent below their 2022 peak.²⁷ But even before the company went under, recent data showed that state legislative action could drive down ghost gun recoveries. In Baltimore, Polymer 80 recoveries dropped by 25 percent in 2023 and again by 29 percent in 2024,²⁸ after Maryland passed ghost gun regulations in 2022. By comparison, overall crime gun recoveries in Baltimore fell by 6 percent from 2022 to 2023 and 1 percent from 2023 to 2024.

Polymer 80 Ghost Guns Recovered by Law Enforcement in 43 US Cities, 2020–2024

Source: Everytown Research analysis of data 43 police departments provided on crime guns recovered from 2020 to 2024.

Last updated: 12.12.2025

Deadly Firearm Technology Is on the Rise

Even as gun homicides and crime gun recoveries decline, police are increasingly encountering new and deadly firearm technology at crime scenes.

Machine-Gun Conversion Devices

Semiautomatic firearms require shooters to pull the trigger every time they fire a round. But machine-gun conversion devices—also known as auto sears—convert semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic machine guns that can fire continuously as long as the trigger is depressed and the gun has ammunition, making them particularly deadly. “Glock switches,” designed by third parties for Glock-style pistols in particular, have become the most common of these devices. They are easy to manufacture and 3D-print, and are often sold online disguised as innocuous products.²⁹

From 2012 to 2016, ATF recovered just 814 machine-gun conversion devices, but over the next five years, that number increased by 570 percent to 5,454.³⁰ Local law enforcement agencies subsequently began to follow ATF’s lead in collecting data on recovered machine-gun conversion devices. In 2024, 28 cities reported over 1,100 Glock switch recoveries. Seventeen cities reported five continuous years of Glock switch data—and in those cities, Glock switch recoveries increased sevenfold since 2020.³¹

Although machine guns have long been tightly regulated under federal law³² and auto sears are now banned in more than half of US states, shootings continue with guns using these devices, largely because some manufacturers have failed to prevent such modifications. But change is on the horizon: California recently became the first state to put pressure on gun manufacturers to prevent the spread of DIY machine guns. In October 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1127,³³ which prohibits gun dealers from selling any pistol that can quickly and easily be converted into a machine gun by attaching a conversion device like a “Glock switch.” Ultimately, this legislation pushes manufacturers to fix the exceptionally dangerous design that allows for easy conversion to automatic fire if they want to continue selling their pistols in California.

3D-Printed Guns

Anyone with access to a 3D printer can create all the parts necessary to build their own firearm—without obtaining a firearm manufacturing license or undergoing a background check. This makes 3D-printed guns an ideal choice for prohibited purchasers, gun traffickers, and others who want to avoid law enforcement. While these guns are just beginning to proliferate domestically, they have already caused harm prominently abroad, where 3D-printed firearms have been used in military conflicts in Myanmar,³⁴ by crime organizations in Europe,³⁵and in a synagogue shooting in Germany.³⁶

In the past five years, 3D-printed gun recoveries in 20 cities have increased 1,000 percent.³⁷ Along with these increases, more cities are beginning to track 3D-printed firearms in their jurisdictions. Although just 20 cities (38 percent of those in this report) collected 3D-printed gun data in 2020, 28 (54 percent) collected data in 2024.

Assault Weapons

Although they are not new, assault weapons are a growing problem when it comes to crime gun recoveries in US cities. Along with being the firearm of choice for mass shooters, they are being recovered more often in daily gun violence.³⁸ These military-style weapons are designed for rapid firing, use high-capacity magazines, and fire rounds at four times the muzzle velocity of a typical handgun round, causing significantly more damage to the human body.³⁹ Even as overall crime gun recoveries decline, the number of assault weapons recovered by police continues to grow, increasing by 27 percent since 2020.⁴⁰ Still, most cities that shared data for this report do not distinguish between assault weapons and other crime gun recoveries. Just 17 out of 52 cities had assault weapon data consistently available, so the problem of assault weapons could be even larger.

Manufacturers Deny Responsibility

For decades, gun manufacturers have taken a head-in-the-sand approach to the use of their guns in crimes. They point to wholesalers, gun stores, and other federally licensed dealers as the ones with more knowledge of and responsibility for this violence.⁴¹ And yet, the same manufacturers also facilitate sales, and have enough data and insight to proudly and publicly report how quickly their products sell⁴²—and offer awards and sales promotions to their top retailers,⁴³ regardless of potentially problematic sales tactics.⁴⁴

Manufacturers learn about their guns showing up at crime scenes in multiple ways. For example, ATF often contacts manufacturers or searches their records electronically to trace their products.⁴⁵ But many manufacturers participate in an ATF program called NTC connect. This program allows manufacturers to make electronic records instantly available to the ATF. Although this allows ATF to quickly complete tracing requests, it also prevents manufacturers from actively participating in the tracing of crime guns they made.

Still, the ATF has published a series of reports identifying the manufacturers of crime guns,⁴⁶ and the state of California has also begun sharing crime gun manufacturer data.⁴⁷ And for the past three years, this Everytown report has featured crime gun manufacturer data from an ever-growing list of US cities. Despite this progress, it is unclear what systems or plans, if any, manufacturers have in place to understand how their guns contribute to the epidemic of gun violence.⁴⁸ But what is increasingly clear is that a small number of manufacturers play a dominant role in driving the supply of crime guns, and they know it.

The Path to Accountability

Recommendations for gun manufacturers

Even though the data clearly shows that their products are fueling deadly crimes in cities, gun manufacturers continue making ever deadlier weapons to boost profits, often irresponsibly marketing their products to downplay their risks⁴⁹ and taking a hands-off approach to policing their supply chains. This must change.

Gun manufacturers must take seriously their obligation to the public to reduce the use of their products in crime and the harm such crimes cause. To improve public safety and prevent guns from ending up in the wrong hands, manufacturers should:

Require dealers to adhere to a public code of conduct and end contracts with those who violate it.
Track and monitor ATF trace requests and carefully scrutinize and potentially end relationships with dealers that account for a disproportionate percentage of crime guns.
Require manufacturers to be notified by ATF of all traces, regardless of whether the trace was completed through NTC Connect.
Perform manufacturer audits of dealers regularly to ensure regulatory compliance, and require that dealers provide reports detailing all ATF inspections and violations.
Commit to developing safer firearms, including those that cannot be operated by unauthorized users or fire unintentionally, accept high-capacity magazines, or be modified with machine-gun conversion devices.
Dedicate funds to advertising campaigns that inform the public about the risks of firearm trafficking and straw purchasing, the importance of secure storage and training, and connections to mental health services.

These reforms would not be unduly burdensome for the gun industry. In fact, Smith & Wesson agreed to many of them in March 2000, when the company struck a deal with the Clinton administration, agreeing to implement a dealer code of conduct, keep better track of its inventory, refuse to sell firearms at gun shows where background checks aren’t conducted, and develop smart guns, among several other safety initiatives.⁵⁰ But after facing a backlash from the gun lobby, Smith & Wesson was sold to new owners.⁵¹ The company never lived up to the terms of the deal. But it’s overdue for manufacturers to get serious about reducing the use of their guns in crime.

Recommendations for government

Federal, state, and local government agencies can take common-sense measures to make sure the gun industry is acting responsibly to keep its products out of criminal hands and to reduce the harms caused by criminal gun violence.

Congress should:

Pass legislation like the Federal Firearm Licensee Act⁵² to strengthen regulation of the firearms industry.
Ensure that ATF has the funding and resources needed to conduct robust oversight and enforcement of the firearms supply chain.
Repeal federal restrictions on crime-gun tracing data.

States should pass laws that:

Require comprehensive tracing of all recovered crime guns.
Require all manufacturers to provide two test-fired cartridge casings to their local law enforcement for entry into NIBIN prior to sale.
Improve safety by prohibiting the sale of assault weapons and firearms that can easily be converted into DIY machine guns,⁵³ and regulate ghost guns and machine-gun conversion devices.
Stop the spread of 3D-printed firearms by prohibiting the distribution of gun blueprints and requiring newly sold printers to recognize and prevent 3D gun printing.
Ensure legal accountability for the gun industry and require all gun dealers to get a state-issued license.
Promote product safety by requiring microstamping technology and childproofing features.

Finally, US cities should:

Collect and make public the names of the manufacturers of recovered crime guns and the number of machine-gun conversion devices, assault weapons, and 3D-printed guns recovered in their communities.
Take legal action against irresponsible manufacturers, as the city of Los Angeles did against Polymer 80.
Leverage law enforcement purchasing power to demand that manufacturers like Glock—the leading manufacturer of police-issued weapons and crime guns⁵⁴—improve their business practices to help reduce criminal use of their weapons.
Identify by name the manufacturer of crime guns during press conferences and in press releases about such crimes, to incentivize manufacturers to take steps to avoid having their products publicly linked to such crimes.

Conclusion

The data is clear: A small number of firearm manufacturers are responsible for making most of the weapons recovered in gun crimes in US cities. These manufacturers too often are engaging in risky business practices to increase profits while disclaiming any responsibility for the criminal violence and harm their weapons cause. But the industry can no longer pretend that it has no knowledge of or responsibility for how its products are sold and used. These companies must change their practices to reduce the use of guns in crime and prioritize the safety of our communities.

Learn More:

Everytown Research & Policy is a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to understanding and reducing gun violence. Everytown Research & Policy works to do so by conducting methodologically rigorous research, supporting evidence-based policies, and communicating this knowledge to the American public.

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Who is Manufacturing the Guns Used in Crimes?

Executive Summary

Key findings from Everytown’s analysis include:

Introduction

Gun Manufacturer Trends in 52 Cities

Top Manufacturer of Recovered Crime Guns in 2024 by City

Crime Guns by Manufacturer in 2024²¹

Why are Glock pistols the weapon of choice for people committing crimes?

Polymer 80 Ghost Guns Recovered by Law Enforcement in 43 US Cities, 2020–2024

Deadly Firearm Technology Is on the Rise

Machine-Gun Conversion Devices

3D-Printed Guns

Assault Weapons

Manufacturers Deny Responsibility

The Path to Accountability

Recommendations for gun manufacturers

Recommendations for government

Conclusion

Learn More:

The Latest

Michigan Firearms Trafficking and Crime Gun Fact Sheet

Wisconsin Firearms Trafficking and Crime Gun Fact Sheet

New Mexico Firearms Trafficking and Crime Gun Fact Sheet

Appendix 3: Methodology to Calculate Annual Revenue of Trafficked Crime Guns