The Endless Loop of the "Gun Show Loop Hole:" Just say it over and over...

[SteveM]

Many gun-controller/prohibitionists have continued to chant, over and over, the existence of the "gun show loophole."

Here is some hard data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

In contrast, a Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report on “Firearms Use by Offenders” found that only 0.8% of prison inmates reported acquiring firearms used in their crimes "At a gun show," with repeat offenders less likely than first-time offenders to report acquiring firearms from a retail source, gun show or flea market. This 2001 study examined data from a 1997 Department of Justice survey of more than 18,000 federal and state prison inmates in 1,409 State prisons and 127 Federal prisons.<20><21> The remaining 99.2% of inmates reported obtaining firearms from other sources, including "From a friend/family member" (36.8%), "Off the street/from a drug dealer" (20.9%), "From a fence/black market source" (9.6%), "From a pawnshop," "From a flea market," "From the victim," or "In a burglary." 9% of inmates replied "Don't Know/Other" to the question of where they acquired a firearm and 4.4% refused to answer.<21>

"...only 0.8%..."

Get out the microscope; there has to be a "loophole" in there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_shows_in_the_United_States (A "Right Wing, GOP/NRA" source)

[jpak]

1. unrec

yup

[burf]

2. Never let the facts get in the way of rhetoric.

[SteveM]

6. He's gotta license to ...do something.... somewhere....

:eyes:

[ZombieHorde]

4. Using facts to form opinions requires intellectual honesty.

yup

[Tuesday Afternoon]

9. rec

yup

[rl6214]

32. Of course you do, never met a fact you've ever liked.

[brewens]

3. Name some of them and when they were chanting this. Who

are these prohibitionists? I watch hours of news every day, some of it liberal and I almost never hear guns brought up.

Are you sure you are really hearing this or is some right-wing source just telling you they are saying it? I have never actually discussed gun control with a Democrat friend but I live in Idaho. Not many Democrats in my state would be worried about it. Get some sleep.

[TheWraith]

5. A few voices, but very loud.

jpak, upthread, is one of them who believes this tripe. Unfortunately another is New York State's Attorney General, who's using the instance of people doing something illegal to go after people who aren't doing anything illegal.

[burf]

7. I'll give you one for starters

Bloomberg calls for end to 'gun show loophole'

http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/20/bloomberg-calls-for-end-to-gun-show-loophole/

[brewens]

26. The only one you come up with is almost TWO years old? n/t

[burf]

35. Hint; look it up yourself,

your more likely to remember it then.

[AtheistCrusader]

36. There are at least two right here in this thread.

Unfortunately, DU rules prohibit 'calling out' another member, so you'll have to maybe look at this, and a couple other threads to identify them.

[SteveM]

39. Sorry I could not respond earlier; this whole forum seemed to have "gone down"...

or my Firefox made a stinker.

I cannot reveal names (per DU rules) of the prohibitionists (please note I said gun-controller/prohibitionists, in an attempt to distinguish between the two in an accurate and non-insulting manner). Other posters have suggested what I have; check some of the responders to this thread.

I cannot speak to your news watching habits. Currently, after years of anti-gun agitprop from MSM, WaPo, NYT, and AP are the ones still rather entrenched in their anti-2A mindset. The others, curiously, are enamored with "Sunday supplement stuff:" Where the reporter -- writing in tongue-in-cheek manner -- visits the shooting range to see what it is all about -- and actually fires a gun!!
Well, it at least beats years of "journalistic" anti-gun drumbeat. In any event, peruse this forum's archives and you will find ample evidence of guns "in the news!", esp. if it involves criminals killing others. Comparatively few self-defense gun uses (some 500,000 to 2+ million a year) are reported. I'll leave that to you.

Actually, I got the data from Wikipedia, which got it from the Feds. What can I say? A right-wing source?

I am not surprised that you believe this; given years of agit-prop, which continues to this day. Again, I cannot speak to the discussions you have about gun-control with Democratic friends. I would suggest that you reference the number of messages posted in this forum when compared with the other named Fora -- it remains in a respectable 2nd place.

Hey! I'm glad folks in Idaho are not worried about it. Given the legislation and lack of Democratic support their for gun-control, I'm not surprised. I grew up in Florida which really got the ball rolling on concealed-carry legislation in the late 1980s; that state went for Obama, and hear-tell, for Gore as well.

I sleep well, but thanks awnyway.

[otohara]

8. Fucking Loopholes -

the rich pay no taxes and we let lunatics buy guns.

[PavePusher]

10. Except that they aren't "loopholes". n/t

[jody]

11. "let lunatics buy guns"? No, "It shall be unlawful for any person — . . . (4) who has been

adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution; . . . to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce." See 18 USC 922

[We_Have_A_Problem]

41. Meanwhile...back in the real world...

your statement has zero basis in reality, just sayin...

[otohara]

46. As An Anti-Anti-Gun Liberal

I suspect anything I would say against guns, in the gun-lovers-only forum, would get generate insults.
Frankly, I posted this when it was on the front page and didn't realize until later, it was the gun forum. Otherwise I would have stayed clear of this
forum.

I was in Kyoto recently - seven million people live in Kyoto - felt safer in Japan than in my own country for one reason.
They aren't packing AK47's, or hand guns. The only magazines they sell are the kind you read.

just sayin....

[gejohnston]

47. Lived in Japan for over three years

and that is the only reason you felt safer? Read up on Japanese history and culture. Those (and the fact that it is kind of a soft police state) have far more to do with it than gun laws. You would be as safe, if not safer, in Vermont or Wyoming.

[We_Have_A_Problem]

49. If you could present arguments based in actual fact...

...rather than hyperbole, fantasy, emotion and flat out fabrication, I'd be more than willing to listen to them.

Sadly, most of those who are pro-gun control have nothing even remotely resembling an argument that takes reality into account.

[Old Codger]

12. Rec

Yup yup

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

13. Yup.

rec

[Hoyt]

14. I agree that gun show promoters should be held responsible for any crimes committed with guns sold

at their "show' by someone not subjected to a background check. They'll have to post a bond or proper insurance.

[gejohnston]

16. how so if no one has

access to NICS? If I understand this correctly, it is a choice of violate federal law or violate state law. That is entrapment.

[krispos42]

28. As long as we hold car dealers to the same standard.

After all, they don't do a background check on their buyers, do they?

[We_Have_A_Problem]

42. Why should the promoter be held responsible?

After all, he's no different than any other event organizer. Kinda silly to hold him responsible for the illegal acts committed by someone in the future.

Also have to wonder how you would know if someone obtained a gun later used in a crime from the show without being submitted to a background check. After all, you have no actual proof it was purchased there.

Did you forget to think it through again, Hoyt?

[pnwmom]

15. Isn't there a similar loophole for purchases at a flea market

and similar sources? And more than 13% didn't answer, so we don't know where they got theirs.

[gejohnston]

19. it is still an intrastate private sale between two individuals, flea market or ad in the paper does

not mater. A loophole is evading the spirit of the law by exploiting some obscure error in wording.Federal law prohibits private persons from using NICS. The commerace clause of the Constitution restricts regulating intrastate commerce between two private persons. Non FFLs can not use NICS Non FFLs are prohibited from doing background checks. In other words this so called "loophole" follows the letter and the spirit of the law.
States may require sales be brokered by an FFL, and some do. If your state does not, I suggest you write your reps in the state assembly, many of us would support you.

[Old Codger]

29. Oregon

I don't know about NICS but in Oregon a private person can run a background check before a sale....

[gejohnston]

30. must be through the state police

because the FBI wants FFL number and pin.
I would like to see every state and territory do this and have incentives to use it.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Also known as the 'water cooler' loophole. And the 'major newspaper' loophole.

The correct term is 'private transfer', between individuals without a firearms dealer's intervention as middle-man.

I particularly enjoy reading about this 'loophole' in newspapers that have a classified ad section full of the same sort of sellers/buyers.

[SteveM]

40. Assuming facts not in evidence...

"Isn't there a similar loophole..."

Clearly, it has not been established that "gun shows" form some kind of loophole.

1) Gun shows are rent-a-halls for different vendors (venison sausage to Ak-47 clones)
2) FFL licensees (many) who sell there must follow the NICS requirements
3) Non-FFL licensees (often many) CANNOT access the NICS system, even if they wanted to
4) Non-FFL licensees cannot sell arms to anyone they know to be a felon or mental incompetent, and are subject to arrest if they do
5) Gun shows are a larger variety of gun-owners meeting in a vacant lot, yard sale, out of a trunk.
6) Eliminating "gun shows" would mean sellers would use other fora (see 5). In which fora can police presence be most effective?

I'm glad you mentioned "flea markets." That is yet ANOTHER forum gun sellers/buyers, FFL licensees or no, would go to; see question in 6 above.

I can only speculate as to why 13% didn't answer; happens in political surveys all the time. What's the skin in it for these folks? "Gun Shows?" More believable is the possibility that these purchases were made from folks with the power and wherewithal to find and "deal with" currently-incarcerated felons.

This forum has been the site for a serious and detailed exploration of making the NICS test (currently required only of FFL licensees) universal. Perhaps you would like to broach the subject? We explored the form of NICS agency, security related to records of such an agency, government or NGO agency, costs vs. "poll tax" concerns, the big federalism question, access to records, the inevitable push for gun-controllers/prohibitionists to use the agency as a gun-registration scheme whereby the government would know who is armed, and how to avoid those problems, etc.

Good discussion. The results would have surprised you.

[ileus]

17. they see the "loophole" as a good first step no one would oppose.

Get their foot in the door and work up from there.

[TheCowsCameHome]

18. When was this study done, and for what period of time?

[TheWraith]

21. Everything you asked is listed right there in the OP.

"This 2001 study examined data from a 1997 Department of Justice survey of more than 18,000 federal and state prison inmates in 1,409 State prisons and 127 Federal prisons."

[TheCowsCameHome]

22. Ah, yes. 15 year old data.

Thanks.

[TheWraith]

23. So your first attempt to question the scientific study crashed and burned...

Time to try a second approach for throwing FUD on it. After all, it's not like the complaints about the so-called "gun show loophole" go back years before said data, and haven't changed since they were proven wrong. Oh wait, it's exactly like that.

[TheCowsCameHome]

25. What first attempt might that be?

[ThoughtCriminal]

20. Same article

In 2000, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) published the "Following the Gun" report.<18> The ATF analyzed more than 1,530 trafficking investigations over a two-and-a-half-year period and found gun shows to be the second leading source of illegally diverted guns in the nation. "Straw purchasing was the most common channel in trafficking investigations."<19> These investigations involved a total of 84,128 firearms that had been diverted from legal to illegal commerce. All told, the report identified more than 26,000 firearms that had been illegally trafficked through gun shows in 212 separate investigations. The report stated that: "A prior review of ATF gun show investigations shows that prohibited persons, such as convicted felons and juveniles, do personally buy firearms at gun shows and gun shows are sources of firearms that are trafficked to such prohibited persons. The gun show review found that firearms were diverted at and through gun shows by straw purchasers, unregulated private sellers, and licensed dealers. Felons were associated with selling or purchasing firearms in 46 percent of the gun show investigations. Firearms that were illegally diverted at or through gun shows were recovered in subsequent crimes, including homicide and robbery, in more than a third of the gun show investigations."
---

As for the earlier study - You think inmates provide accurate information about where they get the tools of their trade? :eyes:

[gejohnston]

24. How did the ATF conduct their study?

The gun show review found that firearms were diverted at and through gun shows by straw purchasers, unregulated private sellers, and licensed dealers.
if there is a gun show loophole, why the straw purchasers? Straw purchasers go to licensed dealers. Redundant?
Private sellers are prohibited from using NICS. Requiring individuals to have an FFL broker a sale between sales should be done on the state level. Doing it on the federal level could violate the commerce clause.

[SteveM]

43. No indication of how many arms/people involved...

"The gun show review found that firearms were diverted at and through gun shows by straw purchasers, unregulated private sellers, and licensed dealers. Felons were associated with selling or purchasing firearms in 46 percent of the gun show investigations. Firearms that were illegally diverted at or through gun shows were recovered in subsequent crimes, including homicide and robbery, in more than a third of the gun show investigations."

So how many felons were found in the "46 percent of the gun show investigations?" A thousand? A hundred? Ten, as was indicated in one of Bloomberg's "investigations?" I have no doubt that gun-show bought firearms were "recovered in subsequent crimes.' Again, how many?

Good question about "earlier study." We may have to speculate. I think that a thug would much rather reveal he purchased a gun at a Fud "gun show," than to reveal he had gotten it from some gun-runner; you know, the kind of folks who have good connections among incarcerated felons.

I've been to a number of gun shows. Cops in and out of the place, uniformed and non-uniformed; occasionally, they pick up the tin-horn crim's snot-sniffing girlfriend, "um-uh-ahing" her way through a straw purchase. Eliminate gun shows, and you eliminate the fish in the barrel -- and they just move on to that car trunk in the alley.

Or to the kitchen table of millions of legal buyer/sellers.

[Euromutt]

48. As other posters note, the "gun show" figure lumps together disparate categories

The so-called "gun show loophole" consists of prohibited persons notionally being able to bypass a NICS check by purchasing firearms from private sellers, something that can, but does not necessarily have to, take place at gun shows.

However, the numbers the ATF gives of guns diverted at gun shows aren't just guns diverted through the "gun show loophole," but includes sales by Federal Firearms Licensees and "straw" purchases. FFLs are required, and able, to request NICS checks on a buyer no matter where they're doing business, be it in their own business premises or at a gun show. Straw purchasers are individuals who have no criminal record and can therefore pass a NICS, who purchase firearms on behalf of prohibited persons or traffickers. Neither type of sale would be affected by the measures proposed to "close the gun show loophole," and because the ATF doesn't break down the diversion figures, we can't tell how big the supposed "gun show loophole" problem actually is. And I have a hard time figuring out why the ATF chose to muddy the issue like this, except to make it look bigger--much bigger--than it actually is.

[krispos42]

27. Playing devil's advocate here...

...it is entirely possible that, if a criminal had a friend or family member go to a gun show expressly for the purpose of buying the criminal a gun, the criminal would have replied "from a friend/family member" to the survey question.

:shrug:

Recced, to irritate jpak.

[AtheistCrusader]

38. Quite true.

[Remmah2]

31. Doughnut holes have more substance. nt

nt

[Euromutt]

33. Criminals buying the guns themselves at gun shows isn't the whole story, though

Firearms Use by Offenders listed how criminal "end users," if you will, acquired their firearms, and while the number of such individuals who purchase firearms at gun shows in person is comparatively miniscule, a far larger number of guns are "diverted" onto the black market at gun shows by non-"end users" (i.e. straw purchasers and traffickers). A fair number of the guns that the "end users" acquired "off the street" or "from a black market source" will have been diverted into the black market at a gun show; very probably in a different state.

But here's the thing: while in its report "Following the Gun" (2000), the ATF listed the number of firearms that it uncovered in investigations as having been "diverted" at gun shows, it did not break down that number into firearms purchased from FFLs vs. private sellers, or purchased by traffickers or (their) straw purchasers vs. purchased by prohibited persons, etc. and while I don't know why the ATF muddied the issue in this way, it's hard to find a more plausible explanation than that it was trying to provide ammunition for persons claiming there's a "gun show loophole."

But from the rest of the data provided in the report, we can establish the following: 48% of diverted firearms are trafficked by crooked (Type 01) FFLs (i.e. licensed gun dealers); another 30% are diverted via straw purchasing. This means that at least 78% of diverted guns are diverted via means that cannot be prevented by mandating background checks because (Type 01) FFLs are already legally required to conduct NICS checks, while the whole point of straw purchasers is that they can pass a NICS check. Moreover, (Type 01) FFLs typically make up 50-75% of firearm vendors at gun shows, and they have way more stock to sell (being dealers) than private sellers, so we can reasonably assume that the majority of guns diverted at gun shows are purchased from FFLs, not from private sellers.

And when we talk of the so-called "gun show loophole," we're really talking specifically about prohibited persons (who cannot pass a NICS check) buying directly from private sellers (who cannot conduct NICS checks). But as far we an tell, this is a negligible percentage of guns diverted at gun shows. A smart trafficker who is trolling a gun show for guns he can buy and resell in DC, Maryland, New Jersey, NYC or Boston will already be accompanied by a stable of straw purchasers to buy from FFLs; it's little to no extra effort to use those straw purchasers to buy from private sellers as well. The only practical effect that requiring private party sales to go through an intermediary FFL (which is in practice what proponents of "closing the gun show loophole" advocate) would have is to add $35 or more to the sell price of every private transfer. Traffickers will simply pass this cost on to their customers, because as Daniel Polsby rightly noted:

The acquisition behavior of illicit retail customers should be discouraged modestly at best by piling costs on gun runners. These customers are seeking to invest in capital plant for which there exists no ready substitutes.

The traffickers' customers are already paying a heavy markup on the retail price of the gun (part of which is the cost of paying the straw purchaser), so what's another $35-50 to them? The only people who will be hampered by "closing the gun show loophole" are legitimate buyers, for whom the FFL transfer fee will add a (to them) significant amount of money to the price of the firearm.

[Scuba]

34. How many do you think is OK?

[We_Have_A_Problem]

44. Could you clarify your question?

I cannot quite make sense of it. It may just be me and Monday...

[SteveM]

45. If you mean "how many" thugs purchasing from shows is OK...

Even one is not "OK."

The problem for any policy and law-maker (and the people who elect them) is where best to expend funds and political capital to solve a clear and significant societal problem (promoting the general welfare), and to do so in a manner which is legal and constitutional. Shutting down or severely restricting gun shows (using measures proposed by advocates of this policy) as a goal does not meet any criteria for economy and political support. Further, there is little if any evidence to show that illegal sales at gun shows are a significant societal problem. And the measures suggested to not address legal concerns; most especially the concerns of federalism and the central government's jurisdiction.

But I may have misunderstood your question.