Bureaucratic Barriers and Inequality: Understanding Illegal Firearm Possession Among Low-Risk African American Men

The topic of firearm enforcement in the USA increasingly raises questions about the intersection of administrative regulation, neighborhood violence, and racial inequality. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 29 African American men in Chicago who were arrested for illegal firearm possession and had completed a court-mandated diversion program, this study examines how participants understood their decisions to carry firearms in the context of high neighborhood violence and complex licensing requirements. Although classified as low risk based on validated risk assessment measures and limited criminal histories, participants described carrying firearms primarily for perceived self-protection. The findings introduce the concept of bureaucratic disenfranchisement to describe how administrative complexity, licensing costs, and processing delays may interact with safety concerns to shape pathways to criminalization. Rather than evaluating the objective effectiveness of firearm carrying, this study centers participants’ perceptions of safety and legality and situates them within the broader scholarship on administrative burden and legal cynicism. The findings contribute to research on criminalization, regulatory governance, and racial disparities in firearm enforcement.