I caught wind of a highly questionable study being circulated by people whose only knowledge of “military style assault rifles” are that the guns are black. A quick look as I’ve been out this evening and it’s late.
Missouri’s 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgun law, which required all handgun purchasers to obtain a license verifying that they have passed a background check
So a redundant background check? You cannot purchase a handgun without a background check. I just purchased a Glock 19 for my wedding anniversary at Top Gun in St. Louis. I couldn’t walk out of the store with my handgun without having said background check. That’s how the law and reality work. So you want a banner and balloons to tip off FFLs, who already perform background checks, that you passed the background check just administered? Missouri law already requires a permit to carry concealed. It’s an idiotic and expensive redundancy that shows no demonstrative effort at reducing crime. Federal law also states that individuals who are not legally allowed to carry a firearm may not purchase a firearm. That law already exists. The reason people break laws is why the term “criminal” was invented. If laws prevent crime than we should have no murders, theft, or rape.
[…] data from crime gun traces revealed simultaneous large increases in the number of guns diverted to criminals and in guns purchased in Missouri that were subsequently recovered by police in border states that retained their PTP laws.
We’re talking Fast and Furious now?
For firearm sales by federally licensed firearm dealers, federal law requires prospective purchasers to pass a criminal background check and sellers to maintain records of the sale. But federal law and laws in most states exempt these regulations when the firearm seller is unlicensed.
The study, which isn’t actually available so we’ll just have to take the researchers’s word for it in summary, presupposes that the amount of private sales is great enough a number to warrant further scrutiny, which begs the question terribly. This was a great piece I came across from NRO a year ago:
There are about 310 million firearms in the U.S., and most recent years have seen 10 to 15 million background checks for gun purchases from dealers. (Background checks do not have a one-to-one relationship to completed sales, but they serve as a decent proxy and we lack other data.) In a year with 15 million dealer sales, it would take 10 million private sales for the 40 percent number to be true, meaning that about 3 percent of privately owned guns would change hands that year.
Put a different way, the average gun would go about 30 years between private sales. This seems plausible to me — more than plausible if we count all transfers, including inheritances — though it would be nice to have good survey data. How long do most gun owners keep their guns, and often do they sell to other individuals rather than trading them in to a licensed dealer?
No one has actually gathered that data, so the researchers are winging it, which sounds completely scientific. It presupposes, based on a thoroughly debunked number, that 40% of firearms are sold sans background checks. As I’ve explained often, that’s a number from the 90s before the Brady Bill. It’s sloppy and disingenuous to pay homage to it in any regard. Furthermore, the poll that the same entity references to support its claim for redundant gun laws is misleading in questions: it asks polls people on the appearance of firearms and not their actual function.
I know nothing about football. It’s like if I created a poll on full backs, running backs, whateverbacks and from the perspective of my own limited knowledge and horrible terminology, asked you to answer yes or no.
I’ve only just begun looking at this silly thing, so be certain that I’ll have more.
