American Cities with the Highest Increase in Homicide Rates

Gun murders are already exceptionally difficult to solve. (See https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/07/poli...) I'd be surprised if modded guns make resolution of cases significantly more difficult. At least in the short-term I would expect the opposite, as the guy with the fully automatic is likely going to be well known just for the sheer novelty.

> Easier access to a gun that you believe is untraceable leads people to be more willing to use them to commit murder.

I don't think you could reasonably say the two are cause-effect. The ease of buying a firearm is not directly related to that person using it to commit murder. Unless of course you're being purposely opaque and including defensive uses as "murder".

Do you own firearms within the state of Maryland? Every single purchase is tracked within the MD State Police (MDSP) registry, all rifles, shotguns, & pistols. Pistols are under a higher restriction and require a HQL for purchase. The HQL requires you to take classes and be approved by the MDSP. You then have a 7 day waiting period after purchase for pickup, if you're approved. After your pickup 30 days after that is the next time you can purchase a pistol.

None of those restrictions exist for weapons 16'' or longer, aka rifles & shotguns. There is a banned rifle registry for replica guns. Like you can't purchase a 50 cal in MD. These are still tracked and marked on every purchase. It's not legal purchases which are the problem so cracking down or increasing the difficulty of these doesn't directly influence illegal firearms.

However for all firearms your name is kept along with the details of the firearm at the dealer. There is a paper trail of all purchases with the MDSP. So unless everyone is filing off the serials on all components these are unlikely to be the majority of trafficked firearms. At least for purchases within MD.

Another thing to consider is that dealers around MD won't sell pistols to MD residents because the ATF would get involved with "firearm smuggling". Rifles and shotguns though are easily purchasable over state lines, for those there is no paperwork.

Assuming you're a MD resident you can drive to WV, VA, or PA and purchase a rifle and drive it back over state lines. Completely legally.

> I can only speak for Baltimore but there are people here making and selling guns made from 80% lower receivers and tiny pieces of 3d printed plastic that will make your gun fully automatic.

That's not how automatic weapons work. They're constructed different to handle the heat of automatic fire. A semi automatic weapon is going to warp and malfunction way more quickly with automatic use. Even so to make it seem like this is the critical issue ignores that binary triggers exist. There is always something that exists to circumvent the "safety" laws.

> Just last month there was a Baltimore city police officer who lived in the county caught trading guns and internal information for drugs. If police officers are doing it you can believe that regular citizens are doing it.

I'm not surprised Baltimore is a crime ridden city, hasn't the last few mayors all been convicted of bribery and other things? It's not going to change either because the government in Baltimore is a joke. They don't want to enforce the laws they already have.

The lengthy isolation most of us have endured last few years isn't exactly great for mental health, regardless of Covid infection.

I have always said anyone who points a gun at another person outside of a self defense scenario has brain damage or a mental illness (Even if it's unknown).

I would think that there are other environmental stressors that have influenced the behavior first, specifically the economic stagnation of the middle and working classes, combined with things like the opioid epidemic, income and housing insecurity with everything further exacerbated by the pandemic, social isolation, economic and supply chain constraints and now record inflation, all within the last decade and with minimal support systems available, along with the rise of divisive populist politics permeating everything and social media pushing people into echo chambers that radicalize their opinions even further.

A lot of people are probably beyond stressed and stretched way past their tolerance point by now.

I don't know about long COVID, but there is definitely an issue with new forms of methamphetamine (specifically, P2P meth) inducing aggression and mental instability in otherwise stable people. Among other sources, The Atlantic published an article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...

As American society slips from being "educated" you're more likely to see violent tendencies. We don't prioritize actual education anymore so people are not able to put to words how they feel or think around their problems.

Well it's certainly the refusal to convict criminals. After the BLM protests we saw many cities you listed made it illegal to arrest people who steal stuff under a certain threshold (among other crimes), and the threshold was set really high (in San Francisco it was $950). Very predictably this has driven up crime and San Francisco's District Attorney was recalled for the policy.

It's quite possible people have been able to purchase more drugs because of the increased crime, but these policies are why crime has skyrocketed and why we've seen so many videos of people going into stores and stealing garbage bags of stuff