The data in this repository comes from the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The NICS is used to determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives. Gun shops call into this system to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn’t otherwise ineligible to make a purchase. The data has been supplemented with state level data from census.gov.
Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms or explosives. Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn’t otherwise ineligible to make a purchase. More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials.
The data in this repository comes from:
- FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System
- NICS Federal Firearms Licensee Manual, which details the history and rules of the background-check program
- NICS Participation Map, which "depicts each state's level of participation with the NICS
The data is stored in the /data/ folder of the project files.
Analysis has been performed in the Jupyter Notebook, using Python 3.x.
To run this project:
- With python 3.x installed, create a virtual environment and activate it as shown:
virtualenv -p python3 my_virtualenv
source my_virtualenv/bin/activate- Clone this repository into your virtual environment:
git clone https://github.com/BarbaraStempien/DA--FBI-Gun-Data.git- Install project dependencies:
pip install -r DA--FBI-Gun-Data/requirements.txt- Open Jupter Notebook, and run the project.
If you want to contribute, check out CONTRIBUTING.md.
Copyright (c) 2018 Barbara Stempien
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.