DA Kevin Hayden: Officials in Easy Gun-Access States Must Recognize Impact of Trafficking
BOSTON, July 7, 2022 —After an Independence Day weekend wracked by gunfire throughout Boston, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden today appealed to governors and legislators in states with easy-access gun purchase laws to consider the impact that firearms trafficked from their states have on cities like Boston.
“The cold truth is that more than 75 percent of illegal firearms used in Boston-area crimes originated in another state. There’s a lethal river of steel flowing from northern and southern states onto the streets of Boston, and our neighborhoods are suffering from it. When one state’s extreme interpretation of 2nd Amendment rights causes extreme suffering in another state it becomes a problem for all Americans,” Hayden said.
On Sunday and Monday alone police responded to more than a dozen shooting scenes across Boston that left 10 people injured. In broad daylight on Tuesday two groups of men in vehicles shot at each other in Chelsea, with a bullet striking the window of a McDonalds where patrons were eating. On Monday, Boston Police seized a .380-cal handgun from a 13-year-old.
“We’re seeing more daylight shootings on busy streets and more guns in the hands of teenagers. The common thread, beyond shooters willing to send bullets flying regardless of where they are, is that the guns were likely trafficked in from another state,” Hayden said.
Hayden’s office this year joined with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Boston Police Department to create Boston FIRST, a program that uses a federal database to track guns and gun casings recovered from crime scenes to their source of origin, and to connect them to other crimes.
Data collected by Hayden’s office and federal authorities show that most illegal guns seized in Boston come from Maine, New Hampshire, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Guns have also been traced to Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio.
The data show that of the 441 traceable guns seized in Boston in 2021, 271, or 61 percent, originated in those nine states; 67, or 15 percent, originated in other states; and 103, or 23 percent, originated in Massachusetts.
“When more than three out of four guns seized in Boston come from out of state it tells me three things. First, gun laws in Massachusetts work well. Second, gun laws in many other states don’t. And third, gun traffickers know which states are easiest for them to amass their murderous inventory and which states are best to sell that inventory,” Hayden said.
James Borghesani, Chief of Communications