What closing the gun-show loophole won’t do
It is an article of faith that closing the “gun-show loophole” would make America a safer place. But that is what it is: faith. In 2008, three criminologists (one of them not at all friendly to guns) studied the effects on murder and suicide rates in California (which prohibits private sales without a background check) and Texas (which does not). They looked at homicide and suicide rates for adjacent ZIP codes for a week after gun shows. They found no change in suicide rates, and in Texas, which has no restrictions on private party sales, a small but statistically significant reduction in gun homicides.
This might seem surprising, and at first glance, it is. Except for one little detail: Criminals appear not to buy guns at gun shows, because guns are expensive. It is so much cheaper to steal guns instead.
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It will not do crap to stop anything. None of these actions today have anything to do with protecting people and everything to do with taking firearms away from law abiding people. They want and need the criminals to have guns. They want and need lots of gun deaths so they can put a guy with a gun on every street asking for papers.
Dr. Frank Enstine on January 16, 2013 at 2:14 PM
What he said.
But it will slow down gun sales and make them more expensive and troublesome, which makes liberals happy because they hate gun owners.
Socratease on January 16, 2013 at 2:22 PM
Given that 99.99…% of gun transfers are completely legal, this is a total waste of resources.
But hey, that’s what the government is good at…waste.
We know that the records for background checks are only supposed to be held for no more than six months…but that the FBI has never actually deleted them (from what I understand.)
So this is a de-facto “registration of owners and weapons” that is the first step to confiscation.
The commies aren’t coming…they are in charge.
ProfShadow on January 16, 2013 at 2:44 PM
+1
d1carter on January 16, 2013 at 2:50 PM
According to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, 93% of all firearms used in criminal acts are obtained illegally, ie, on the street, through theft, etc. Thus, even if we had universal background checks, it would only affect 7% of the guns used in the commission of criminal acts.
According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from:
* a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2%
* a retail store or pawnshop for about 12%
* family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80%
In other words, criminals don’t get their guns from gun shows and shops.
Per the FBI:
So, going after firearms only goes after 12.5% of the violent offences.
After 1996, less than 10% of nonfatal violent crimes involved firearms.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, incidents involving a firearm represented 7% of the 5.1 million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault in 2008.
Only 2% of prison inmates used a military-style semiautomatic gun.
Among prisoners carrying a firearm during their crime, 40% of State inmates and 56% of Federal inmates received a sentence enhancement because of the firearm.
On average, State inmates possessing a firearm received sentences of 18 years, while those without a weapon had an average sentence of 12 years.
If a criminal is going to commit a crime, he is not going to obey a law which subjects him to a criminal background check.
Pssst, Proggies! If They Obeyed The Law, They Wouldn’t Be Criminals
Resist We Much on January 16, 2013 at 2:52 PM