Heat Just Became More Expensive

The mayor’s campaign to stanch the flow of illegal guns has raised prices on the black market and encouraged bad people to engage in more cigarette smuggling:

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.