Gun Violence Isn't a Problem — it's actually 5 Problems, with Different Solutions

boing
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Yeah. PUBG the yearly released military shooter.

The pertinent games are your Call of Duties and Battlefield and what haves.

Wasn’t the point.

Many states do not require a background check for private sales of fire arms. And this includes person to person sales at gun shows, swap meets etc.

Meaning that you can travel to one of those shows, in one of those states to commercially purchase a gun without submitting to a background check or even having your license checked.

That creates a big gap in enforcement for any bars to ownership or licensing. Cause where ever you’re at there’s a trivial way to skate around it.

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42

So its more of a private sale loophole than gun show loophole? Or is there something different about the show other than greater variety?

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43

Legally a gun show purchase is a private sale. No background check, no ID check, cash and gone. Same with want ad purchases. If you can’t get a gun when you want one, you are an idiot. That is a problem.

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44

A gun dealer can sell guns at a show without following the laws that apply to them at their store?

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45

A private sale between two people who didn’t already know each other will likely leave some trace.

A cash sale between two folks who don’t know each other at a gun show will leave NO trace.

Also, when Ruger or Colt set up a stand at a gun show to sell directly to the public … that’s a pretty loose interpretation of ‘private sale’.

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46

Short answer, “Yes.”

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47

Wow! That is crazy.

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48

Technically. But actual private person to person transfers tend to abide more by the spirit of the law. A person you know sells you a used gun.

In the gun show you can basically purchase a brand new gun from some one who sells guns professionally. Who you’ve never met, and will never see again.

The gun shows garner most of the attention because they cause bigger problems. Apparently a large percentage of illegal guns seized in NYC are traced back to gun shows in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But the actual problem is the private sale exemption. And the push is to do away with it entirely. Gun shows as they exist today pretty much only exist to take advantage of, and on basis of these private sale exemptions.

So “gun show loophole” has become the short hand.

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49

That makes more sense, I could not believe that the law was different at gun shows.

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ONLY if the sale is between two private individuals. Most of the full tables are actually dealers. There are hobbyist who are selling privately, or someone trying to liquidate an estate. And of course you might see a guy with a sign walking around or a slung rifle with a price taped to it. But the vast majority of sales there are dealers and in each case must go through a NICS check.

Actually, no.

That isn’t a private sale, and anything like that would go through the standard NICS background check. In fact MOST of the people at a gun show are not private sellers but dealers and most of the transactions are going through NICS checks.

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51

This is one of those things that you really want to google, because there is a lot of wrong information out there, and a lot of people don’t believe people like Mister44 when he provides a truthful and accurate explanation of the issue.

Here’s a Wikipedia article on the subject:

Here’s something from Polifact:

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52

Also worth noting that in at least a few states, if you make a private sale, and that gun is used for a crime within a certain amount of time, you can be tried for, or as an accessory, to the crime in addition to the criminal.

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53

Contra to the article, I’d say that there is just one problem. A small, but significant section of the American voting public is driven by a single issue, and single issue voters are extremely powerful.

The gun merchants have drilled into what seems to be the most potent well of Americana the country possesses and they’ve hit pay-dirt.

You can’t rationally battle what is not a rational battle. No argument, no matter how factual, matters here.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s a way to salvage the gun fight in the US, it’s wedded way too tightly to the concept of what it means to be an American. But if it can, it will be by giving the sorry souls for whom guns are a fundamental part of their identity something else to latch onto instead. And since no-one is interested in providing that, I think you’re stuck with the gun nuts driving your national policy for the foreseeable future.

[Note, this is a non-American’s perspective]

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54

This is a weird hill to die on.

No, not every dealer at a gun show is unlicensed. On that I’ve no doubt Mister44 is technically correct.

But that’s rather an in the weeds digression. The question was, does saying “technically, violent felons are barred from buying firearms” have any actual meaning?

And in a world where, among other problems, the “gun show loophole” (or the “private sale exception” or the “craigslist boogaloo”) exists, the answer must be no.

From your own Politifact link:

When researchers excluded purchases between family and friends, that number dropped to 15 percent, which equates to approximately 5 million gun owners whose most recent purchase did not involve a background check.

In the context of friggin’ gun sales, mind, fifteen percent strikes me as pretty goddamn huge number. Even 1% would be about 1% too many. The problem is, just as docosc said, “If you can’t get a gun when you want one, you are an idiot.”

That’s a huge problem, in fact, and there’s nothing ‘truthful and accurate’ about trying to sweep it under a rug woven of technicalities.

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55

Which sounds nice. But:

a) not really as nice as simply running someone’s ID and denying them use of a firearm before they’ve hurt someone, is it?

b) are these laws in the states where everyone drives to to buy their guns, or are they in the states people drive from to buy their guns? (Kinda pointless if it’s not both, isn’t it?)

c) what do you want to bet me that, even in the latter states, they aren’t as riddled with exceptions and lax enforcement as everything else in the gun policy world. (If you have some charge and conviction rates for those laws, I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised, but I’m not holding my breath.)

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56

Only “not helping” in the sense that people who bring up global warming are “not helping” because of deniers. Sometimes one side is just wrong, and compromise isn’t worth it. Nobody needs a fucking AK-47. I’m originally from the Midwest. Deer country. I get why some people want a rifle. Some people like to hunt deer and eat them, even if I don’t. But they don’t need crap like that. The whole point of a military grade rifle is to murder someone, period.

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57

We can all shout that from the rooftops as much as we want, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are currently legal to own, and proposing equipment bans is a) the least practical form of gun violence reduction, and b) the method that most drives the gun community into a 2A frenzy. Weigh the number of shootings committed by AK-47s in this country (I haven’t looked it up, but I’m sure it’s low), vs. the political and practical effort to go out and confiscate US citizens’ personal property (which they will assure you they have a constitutional right to own), and you might come to the conclusion there are probably gun control solutions that should be looked at before that.

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Er - how do you figure that, considering I explicitly list out 7+ factors that lead to their increase in popularity?

To touch on a few of your points, yes there was always a niche of collectors/shooters who were buying real machines guns and/or military style weapons. The average person buying Guns and Ammo, or Shooting Times, or the National Rifleman were not into this market and it was very niche. But there was a user base pre 90s for sure.

I agree marketing plays a factor, but I don’t think it is nearly as large of an influence as you suggest it is. The paradigm for the average firearm buyer had to shift before you started to see any real marketing. Like I said, the larger manufactures who had actual marketing budgets and glossy magazine ads were well behind the curve on the rise of the ARs popularity. You would see a small 3x2 ad in the back for an AR maker, while the new bolt gun was on the inside coves. It’s what allowed several companies that were non existent 20 some years ago become well known names now thanks to their concentration on one niche. In fact many of these companies started as user hobbyists making parts on the side and then grew the business from there.

Of course marketing influences things, but it can’t will a market into existence. In my observation it was mainly the enthusiastic user base and the other factors listed above that got the interest off the ground.

Fair point on politics making an impact. Like I said certainly the AWB boosted the signal. So did a Democrat winning the election in 2008. People, including myself, bought a rifle just because there was a feeling that we were on a time clock. Get one now and get grandfathered in or else you won’t have that option in a couple of years.

Also a good point bringing up the defense market. Though I am not sure the AR started that, it has benefited after the fact. In the 90s there was no conceal carry market, as in most states the only people who could were people involved in law enforcement. 20-30 years later and it is extremely common, and we have had a huge new market of firearms to cater to that market in the handgun arena. The AR is now marketed as an option for home defense, but in my observation that marketing is mostly after the fact.

I’ve tried to show there are a variety of different users in these discussions. But yes, Jo Blo may start off with a night stand gun, and then he meets some people at the range who let him try out their AR. And he went from, “OH man, I don’t need an AR, I’m not Rambo or anything.” to “Wow, that was really nice, maybe I should look into getting one.” For sure for every user who goes out at least once a month shooting, you have dozens of other users who buy a few guns and go out once a year or so. In the past these casual users would have a shot gun and/or a bolt action rifle. Now they might pick up a cheap AR because the paradigm has shifted that far.

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Here is the thing about the private sale loop hole:

First off - the vast majority of gun owners and buyers and sellers are just regular, law abiding people. There are ~80 million gun owners in the US and only a tiny fraction of that uses them for crimes. So one has to ask if the added measure is actually going to reduce crime in any significant way?

I haven’t seen data showing that there is a large problem of prohibited persons tricking a law abiding gun owner into selling them a used gun. Anecdotally, I have seen just the opposite. When the FB BST pages were allowed, the tweaker methheads were banned. People wanted a CCW license to show they were legal, or at least a driver’s license. The average person doesn’t want to sell guns to a criminal. Anyone who has no qualms selling to anyone most likely isn’t going to stop doing that just because there is a law now.

The even bigger issue is straw purchases. People buying them for their cousin or significant other or whoever who is a prohibited person. That is incredibly difficult to stop.

If they required a NICS check for private sales, then they should open the system up so that anyone can run that check online for said private sales. It would probably require an upgrade to the system. Of course the NICS system also isn’t perfect. We aren’t going to technocrat ourselves into a utopia because there will always be people who want to abuse the system to commit crimes.

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60

Any felony conviction for anything, violent or not, even if there was no prison time, is a lifetime prohibition from buying, owning, or possessing any gun (except things that are not regulated as guns, like muzzle loaders, air rifles, and pre-1899 guns). It also prohibits buying or possessing any ammo or even parts of ammo. The only way to get relief from that is to have the felony removed, which is not easy and is pretty rare. Basically it means getting a pardon from the governor (state crimes) or president (federal) or having the court remove the charge. “Possession” is defined pretty broadly, such as even being in the same home as an unsecured firearm. There are some extremely narrow exceptions which allow possession in some circumstances which almost never apply in real life.

Weirdly enough, a felon could possess a pre-1899 gun, but not any cartridges for it.

The other major way to get a lifetime prohibition is misdemeanor domestic violence.

Martha Stewart can never touch a gun or a round of ammo, at least until some future president pardons her, which I expect will happen someday.

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