Why Control Gun Shows?
Criminals Rarely Buy At Them
Posted: February 7, 2013
Virginia lawmakers have quashed an effort to require a criminal background check for anyone purchasing a firearm at a gun show. But this has not signaled an end of a push to close the “gun-show loophole.”
Such is the “Newtown effect” — i.e., the urgent need to “do something” — that a trio of state senators has crafted a bill to authorize voluntary background checks at gun shows.
The intent of all this striving seems to be a reduction of a statistic oft-bandied — that 40 percent of firearms purchased nationally are done so without a background check — but decidedly untrue.
The figure, itself a misrepresentation, has its basis in a Clinton-era survey of 251 gun sales consummated before the Brady Act required mandatory background checks when guns are bought from licensed dealers. The actual number reported, so says indefatigable scholar John Lott, was 36 percent. And even that was wrong, as many buyers canvassed in the survey did not know they had dealt with licensed dealers. Mr. Lott pegs the number more accurately at 15 percent. The bottom line, he added, is if the same survey were done today, that figure would even be lower.
More to the point at hand — gun shows — the Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, recently reported this: “Interestingly, while people often speak of the ‘gun show loophole,’ the data in this 1994 survey shows that only 3.9 percent of firearm purchases were made at gun shows.” reports this: “Interestingly, while people often speak of the ‘gun show loophole,’ the data in this 1994 survey shows that only 3.9 percent of firearm purchases were made at gun shows.”
A survey of prison inmates in 2004, he reported, showed that just 11 percent obtained a firearm from a licensed dealer, and only 1.7 percent from a gun show or flea market.
And the Cato Institute’s David Lampo reported this in 2000: “Contrary to President Clinton’s claims, there is no “gun show loophole.” All commercial arms dealers at gun shows must run background checks, and the only people exempt from them are the small number of non-commercial sellers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, at most 2 percent of guns used by criminals are purchased at gun shows, and most of those were purchased legally by people who passed background checks.”
Thus, the numbers from Messrs Kessler and Lampo comport with each other, meaning they haven’t likely changed since the survey of inmates in 2004. And that means closing the “gun show loophole” will do little but allow the continued fixation on illusory stats, “loopholes,” and the law-abiding, as opposed to thugs in gun-control havens, like Chicago, who continue to visit mayhem and murder upon the public.
Of course, it also makes lawmakers feel better about themselves, while doing nothing to address the problem of crime.
Such is the “Newtown effect” — i.e., the urgent need to “do something” — that a trio of state senators has crafted a bill to authorize voluntary background checks at gun shows.
The intent of all this striving seems to be a reduction of a statistic oft-bandied — that 40 percent of firearms purchased nationally are done so without a background check — but decidedly untrue.
The figure, itself a misrepresentation, has its basis in a Clinton-era survey of 251 gun sales consummated before the Brady Act required mandatory background checks when guns are bought from licensed dealers. The actual number reported, so says indefatigable scholar John Lott, was 36 percent. And even that was wrong, as many buyers canvassed in the survey did not know they had dealt with licensed dealers. Mr. Lott pegs the number more accurately at 15 percent. The bottom line, he added, is if the same survey were done today, that figure would even be lower.
More to the point at hand — gun shows — the Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, recently reported this: “Interestingly, while people often speak of the ‘gun show loophole,’ the data in this 1994 survey shows that only 3.9 percent of firearm purchases were made at gun shows.” reports this: “Interestingly, while people often speak of the ‘gun show loophole,’ the data in this 1994 survey shows that only 3.9 percent of firearm purchases were made at gun shows.”
A survey of prison inmates in 2004, he reported, showed that just 11 percent obtained a firearm from a licensed dealer, and only 1.7 percent from a gun show or flea market.
And the Cato Institute’s David Lampo reported this in 2000: “Contrary to President Clinton’s claims, there is no “gun show loophole.” All commercial arms dealers at gun shows must run background checks, and the only people exempt from them are the small number of non-commercial sellers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, at most 2 percent of guns used by criminals are purchased at gun shows, and most of those were purchased legally by people who passed background checks.”
Thus, the numbers from Messrs Kessler and Lampo comport with each other, meaning they haven’t likely changed since the survey of inmates in 2004. And that means closing the “gun show loophole” will do little but allow the continued fixation on illusory stats, “loopholes,” and the law-abiding, as opposed to thugs in gun-control havens, like Chicago, who continue to visit mayhem and murder upon the public.
Of course, it also makes lawmakers feel better about themselves, while doing nothing to address the problem of crime.