originally wrote the 1997 NIJ study to rerun their numbers, looking only at the origin of gun purchases instead ofall transfers. When they did, things changed quite a bit. The Post summarized the new results:
[R]ather than being 30 to 40 percent (the original estimate of the range) or “up to 40 percent” (Obama’s words), gun purchases without background checks amounted to 14 to 22 percent. And since the survey sample is so small, that means the results have a survey caveat:plus or minus six percentage points.
So now, with the margin of error, we are down to as low as 8 percent, and we haven’t even gotten to the biggest problems yet. For example, the vast majority of the purchases disclosed in the original survey (at least 80 percent) were reportedly made before the Brady Act instituted mandatory federal background checks on February 28, 1994. Prior to this act, federal law merely required people to sign a statement that they had not been convicted of certain crimes or had a history of significant mental illness. Many people who filled out these forms likely did not consider them to be the equivalent of a “background check.” Given the system put in place after Brady, we should expect a much higher percentage of gun owners to now say that their purchase was subject to a background check than they did back then.
The seventh problem with the survey is that it asked buyers if they thought they were buying from a licensed firearms dealer. Back thenthere were more than 283,000 federally licensed gun dealers (FLLs),while today there are just 118,000. Many people who bought from these “kitchen table” FLLs did not realize that they were buying from a fully licensed dealer because the transaction seemed so casual. The perception was that only “brick and mortar” stores were fully licensed.
No one knows exactly how many gun transactions are outside the FFL system today, but—excluding family gifts andinheritances—it’s hard to believe that it is anywhere near 40 percent. And if someone does decide to study the issue again, I sincerely hope that this time they’ll talk to more than 250 people.
While the 40 percent statistic clearly does not add up, what really doesn’t add up is the language used by those who like to cite it. For example:
— Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “The loophole is called the gun show loophole.”
— Mayor Cory Booker (Newark, New Jersey): “We’ve got to end the gun show loophole.”
— Ed Schultz: “Closing the gun show loophole would be a big step forward becausethat’s 40 percent of the sales in this country.”
The “gun show loophole”? It doesn’t exist. The laws at a gun show are the same as the laws everywhere else: licensed dealers must run background checks; private sellers (those not engaged in the business of selling firearms) do not. Any sale, by anyone, in any place is still subject to federal law requiring that guns cannot be sold to known criminals.
Calling private, noncommercial sales a “gun show loophole” is only meant to rile people up who have never been to a gun show. Controllists hope people hear about a loophole and picture criminals fresh out of prison loading up their trunks with AR-15s.
GUN SHOWS ARE WHERE CRIMINALS GET ALL THEIR WEAPONS.
“The overwhelming majority of my gun crimes and the overwhelming majority of gun crimes committed in America are done by people who get guns illegally, by people who get guns in the secondary market. That’s what I said before. About 40 percent of our guns are being sold in secondary markets, places like gun shows, the Internet,there’s no regulation, there’s no background checks.”
—MAYOR CORY BOOKER , December 17, 2012
It’s just not true. In fact, even if you look at the flawed 1994 survey, only 4 percent of people said they got their firearm at a gun show. And another NIJ study, while admittedly pretty old (it’s from the mid-1980s), found that, as Independence Institute gun policy scholar
[R]ather than being 30 to 40 percent (the original estimate of the range) or “up to 40 percent” (Obama’s words), gun purchases without background checks amounted to 14 to 22 percent. And since the survey sample is so small, that means the results have a survey caveat:plus or minus six percentage points.
So now, with the margin of error, we are down to as low as 8 percent, and we haven’t even gotten to the biggest problems yet. For example, the vast majority of the purchases disclosed in the original survey (at least 80 percent) were reportedly made before the Brady Act instituted mandatory federal background checks on February 28, 1994. Prior to this act, federal law merely required people to sign a statement that they had not been convicted of certain crimes or had a history of significant mental illness. Many people who filled out these forms likely did not consider them to be the equivalent of a “background check.” Given the system put in place after Brady, we should expect a much higher percentage of gun owners to now say that their purchase was subject to a background check than they did back then.
The seventh problem with the survey is that it asked buyers if they thought they were buying from a licensed firearms dealer. Back thenthere were more than 283,000 federally licensed gun dealers (FLLs),while today there are just 118,000. Many people who bought from these “kitchen table” FLLs did not realize that they were buying from a fully licensed dealer because the transaction seemed so casual. The perception was that only “brick and mortar” stores were fully licensed.
No one knows exactly how many gun transactions are outside the FFL system today, but—excluding family gifts andinheritances—it’s hard to believe that it is anywhere near 40 percent. And if someone does decide to study the issue again, I sincerely hope that this time they’ll talk to more than 250 people.
While the 40 percent statistic clearly does not add up, what really doesn’t add up is the language used by those who like to cite it. For example:
— Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “The loophole is called the gun show loophole.”
— Mayor Cory Booker (Newark, New Jersey): “We’ve got to end the gun show loophole.”
— Ed Schultz: “Closing the gun show loophole would be a big step forward becausethat’s 40 percent of the sales in this country.”
The “gun show loophole”? It doesn’t exist. The laws at a gun show are the same as the laws everywhere else: licensed dealers must run background checks; private sellers (those not engaged in the business of selling firearms) do not. Any sale, by anyone, in any place is still subject to federal law requiring that guns cannot be sold to known criminals.
Calling private, noncommercial sales a “gun show loophole” is only meant to rile people up who have never been to a gun show. Controllists hope people hear about a loophole and picture criminals fresh out of prison loading up their trunks with AR-15s.
GUN SHOWS ARE WHERE CRIMINALS GET ALL THEIR WEAPONS.
“The overwhelming majority of my gun crimes and the overwhelming majority of gun crimes committed in America are done by people who get guns illegally, by people who get guns in the secondary market. That’s what I said before. About 40 percent of our guns are being sold in secondary markets, places like gun shows, the Internet,there’s no regulation, there’s no background checks.”
—MAYOR CORY BOOKER , December 17, 2012
It’s just not true. In fact, even if you look at the flawed 1994 survey, only 4 percent of people said they got their firearm at a gun show. And another NIJ study, while admittedly pretty old (it’s from the mid-1980s), found that, as Independence Institute gun policy scholar
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