Price of Illegal Guns Soaring Here In Wake of Anti-Gun Campaign

The price of illegally acquired guns has been rising in the city since the mayor began his campaign against "the scourge of illegal guns" in January, a police source said.

Many handguns are selling for about $200 more than they were, averaging about $700 to $1,000 apiece, the source said. Rifles are selling for about $300 more, averaging between $1,200 and $1,500, the source said.

The black market for guns operates like any other market, experts said yesterday, meaning that when pressures are put on supply or demand, prices tend to rise.

"It's a commodity like any other commodity," a former agent and manager at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, William Vizzard, said. Mr. Vizzard, a professor at California State University, Sacramento, said pressure exerted on gun traffickers by the BATFE and the New York Police Department have likely made many criminals turn to less risky ventures, such as cigarette smuggling.

He said New York City's violent crime wasn't increasing at a rate that would support the theory that demand for guns was increasing and thus pushing up prices.

Through October 29, homicides have increased to 471 from 455 during the same period in 2005, CompStat data show. Since the shooting of two police officers at the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006, Mayor Bloomberg has made it a priority to stem the number of illegally acquired guns on the city's streets.

In July, the NYPD reorganized its gun units under one division and created a new detective unit, the Gun Enhancement Unit, which interviews every person arrested with a gun.

The New York Sun reported early last month that the Gun Enhancement Unit had collected 220 pieces of intelligence by the end of September that assisted ongoing cases or resulted in new investigations. Police have made 3,160 gun arrests this year, compared with 2,744 for the same period in 2005, Compstat data show.

A police spokesman declined to comment on the price of street guns, but said detectives believed the department's efforts were crimping illegal gun commerce in the city.

A spokesman for the BAFTE, Joseph Green, said agents weren't seeing a rise in the price of guns trafficked between states. The president of the Citizen's Crime Commission, Richard Aborn, a former head of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, said the more intense local than national efforts to combat illegal guns could account for the difference.

The police department and the BAFTE buy guns from criminals during the course of investigations. Officials from both agencies said no illegal gun sale is alike and that changes in price depend on several factors, including the legitimate price of the gun and the buyer's negotiating ability.

The police source said the heat from law enforcement and increased scrutiny on guns in general were pushing up the price, but the traffickers that are staying in the business are getting bigger payouts.

Guns sell anywhere from about $100 to several thousand dollars, but once they hit the street — through "straw purchases" (where someone buys a gun to pass it on to another), thefts, or other means — they typically rise in price by several hundred dollars. New York State has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. A gun license alone requires several visits to police headquarters, filling out a lengthy questionnaire, and about $400 in fees.

Whereas the market for narcotics is highly organized and international, the market for illegal guns is more casual and often involves family members in states with looser gun purchase and possession laws, Mr. Vizzard said. This makes it more difficult to track the real-time price of illegal guns because the market response is not as uniform as other types of black markets.

In places such as Japan, where guns are virtually nonexistent, the price of a gun on the street is "unbelievably high," he said.