Women, straw purchasing and the illegal diversion of guns to criminals
Over the span of seven days in early 2022, Nakita Lake purchased six handguns for her brother, Gerald Tonsil Jr. Tonsil was a convicted felon, a fact also known to his sister. Lake was accompanied by Tonsil on all three transactions at the Berkeley Springs Trading Post gun store in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. The gun store contacted the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) the day following Lake’s final purchase — of two identical Glock .40-caliber pistols — to report that they thought her activity was suspicious. Just three months later, one of the firearms purchased by Lake was recovered in a shooting in Nassau County, New York. Another firearm was recovered approximately eight months later, following another shooting in Nassau County. In March 2023, both Lake and Tonsil were charged with multiple federal gun charges.
Lake was a “straw purchaser” for her brother. Federal law prohibits specific categories of people from buying, possessing, shipping or receiving firearms, such as convicted felons, fugitives from justice, individuals suffering from addiction to controlled substances and people with active restraining orders or prior misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. Straw purchases occur when prohibited persons use proxy buyers who can pass criminal background checks to purchase firearms from federal firearm licensees (FFLs). Straw purchasing is a prevalent problem, accounting for 40% of ATF gun trafficking investigations made between 2017 and 2021. The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act enacted harsher penalties for straw purchasing, increasing the maximum term of imprisonment to 15 years and a $250,000 fine, and up to a 25-year prison sentence if the firearm is used to commit a felony, in an act of terrorism or in a drug trafficking crime.
ATF traces crime guns to their last-known sale at the request of law enforcement agencies who recover these firearms, a statistic known as time-to-crime (TTC). A short TTC, generally less than three years, is regarded as an indicator of firearm trafficking and can provide an important opportunity for law enforcement agencies to investigate recently purchased firearms and disrupt the flow of crime guns from specific gun dealers and purchasers. ATF investigators view a crime gun with a short TTC recovered in the possession of a man and last purchased by a woman as a very strong indicator of firearm trafficking. The available research offers robust support for this investigative insight.
Female-purchased guns are at greater risk for recovery
Gallup polls report an increase in women who report gun ownership over time, rising from roughly 13% in 2007 to 22% in 2022. However, women are much more likely to be purchasers of crime guns rather than possessors. The recent ATF National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA) found that women purchased nearly 20% (432,608) of 2,176,698 traced crime guns recovered in the United States between 2017 and 2023. During this same time period, women were the possessors of only 8% of all recovered crime guns in which the possessor’s gender was known. Women are also overrepresented among gun purchasers at FFLs that experience higher levels of criminal activity. A 2011 national survey found that FFLs with high volumes of crime-gun traces, relative to those with low volumes, made more gun sales to female clientele and had increased exposure to illegal activity such as firearm theft, denied sales to purchasers with prohibitions (such as convicted felons) and attempted straw purchases.
Female-purchased firearms are at much greater risk of recovery in crime relative to male-purchased firearms, suggesting female straw purchasers represent an important pipeline of illicit guns to some prohibited persons. A 2007 study of handguns sold in Maryland during the 1990s found that when women purchased handguns, these firearms were 57% more likely to be subsequently recovered in crime relative to handguns purchased by males. For female buyers who purchased at least one prior handgun recovered by the police, their subsequently purchased handguns were 92% more likely to be used in crime.
Firearms purchased by women tend to be recovered in crimes significantly more quickly than firearms purchased by men. For traced crime guns recovered between 2017 and 2021, the NFCTA reported that the median TTC for crime guns purchased by women was only 620 days (1.7 years) as compared to men at 1,137 (3.1 years). Nearly 60% of crime guns purchased by women were recovered within three years of purchase relative to 45% of crime guns purchased by men.
High-risk gun possessors, such as violent gang members, seem to be more reliant on female straw purchasers as proximate sources of guns. In Chicago, traced crime guns recovered from gang members were more than 2.5 times more likely to be first purchased by women (15.1%) relative to traced crime guns recovered from non-gang possessors (5.8%). An NFCTA analysis of 2017-2021 ATF firearm trafficking investigations reported that approximately 16% of identified firearm traffickers were women. These women were overwhelmingly involved as straw purchasers in the investigated trafficking enterprises. ATF agents reported nearly 70% of all female traffickers were engaged in straw purchasing. In contrast, only 37% of male traffickers were reported as straw purchasers.
Lack of knowledge, feeling vulnerable and social norms drive straw-purchasing
Operation Lipstick (Ladies Involved in Putting a Stop to Inner-City Killing), a nonprofit anti-gun trafficking organization that originated in Boston and is now active in Philadelphia and elsewhere in the United States, developed qualitative insights on the reasons why women become involved in straw purchasing, based on media stories of these criminal events. Many of the cases were relationship-based crimes committed by women who were straw purchasing guns for their boyfriends, male relatives and friends. These women reported feeling vulnerable or dependent on these men for protection, money or approval; some suggested they were motivated by love, loyalty or fear of violence if they refused. Female straw purchasers sometimes suggest that they need cash to support substance abuse problems, while others report they are driven by economic concerns such as needing to pay for rent, food and clothes.
Many female straw purchasers were not aware that they were committing a serious crime. They didn’t know that they could face harsh sentences and usually didn’t connect their straw purchases to subsequent shootings and other violent gun crimes. In some cases, straw purchasing was considered socially acceptable behavior and women recruited their female friends and family members to participate in gun trafficking enterprises. Women who worked for trafficking rings comprising multiple straw purchasers moved large quantities of guns to criminal consumers.
What might help
Nonprofit groups such as Operation Lipstick and Mothers In Charge have led community-based awareness campaigns to make straw purchasing by women a social taboo through peer-to-peer education and leadership development. These efforts attempt to educate women on the harms generated by buying guns for people who are legally barred from possessing them. Importantly, these campaigns work to direct services and opportunities to address underlying issues, such as substance abuse or unemployment, that may make them vulnerable to participating in straw purchases. This includes supporting domestic violence victims who are being coerced to buy guns for their partners.
As suggested by the Tonsil-Lake case above, vigilant FFLs are critical in shutting down straw purchases regardless of buyer gender. Since 2000, ATF has partnered with the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) on the “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” campaign that seeks to address this problem by educating FFLs on straw purchasing indicators and teaching prospective buyers about the harms associated with these criminal acts and the stiff penalties faced by those who participate in these illegal gun transfers. “Don’t Lie” signage in FFLs further seeks to deter prospective buyers from going through with their purchases.
Not all FFLs are willing to intervene in highly suspicious purchases. Malfeasance should be suspected when women accompanied by men repeatedly buy large numbers of pistols in the same make and caliber from the same store over short time periods. In one recent case, a woman purchasing a Glock pistol completed the federal firearm purchase form affirming that she was the actual purchaser, but then she paid for the gun using her male friend’s credit card. After leaving the store, she returned minutes later with her male friend to buy ammo using his credit card. The FFL did not deny these transactions despite the obvious warning signs. Federal, state and local partnerships to detect and apprehend straw purchasers through strategic analyses of crime-gun intelligence data may also be helpful in shutting down the flow of illegal guns through this trafficking channel. These data-driven investigations can also identify and hold accountable FFLs who allow these illegal transactions.
While there are many promising ideas, more research is needed to determine whether any of these programs work to decrease straw purchasing more generally and straw purchasing by women in particular. New studies could shed important insights on the underlying conditions associated with female straw purchasing problems, refine and expand existing approaches that seem to work, and develop innovations desperately needed to shut down this prevalent pathway through which prohibited persons acquire guns. Given the great harm generated by straw-purchased guns, it is high time these studies were funded and completed.
