The following recommendation was made by a number of American organizations earlier this year: "[We] strongly support requiring criminal background checks for all firearm purchases, including sales by gun dealers, sales at gun shows, and private sales between individuals. Although current laws require background checks at gun stores, purchases at gun shows do not require such checks. This loophole must be closed."
Which organizations do you think were behind this recommendation? If you guessed a gun control advocacy group like Everytown for Gun Safety, you were wrong. It was actually made by 8 professional medical organizations: American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Emergency Physicians, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American College of Surgeons, and American Psychiatric Association, and the American Public Health Association. Also on board is the American Bar Association, which informs us that this and other recommendations do not conflict with the Second Amendment. You can read the whole text of the recommendations here.
Among the politicians who have endorsed the "closing the "gun show loophole"" recommendation made by the above organizations is Hillary Clinton.
So are they right? Is there a "gun show loophole"? And if so, how important is it to close it as far as reducing gun violence is concerned? In this blog post, I will try to answer the above questions, as well as another: "Would expanding background checks reduce gun violence?"
First of all, it needs to be made clear that the phrase "gun show loophole" applies to more than just gun shows. According to Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins University, "If you're not a licensed dealer and want to sell a gun directly to somebody, then you don't need to run a background check. Some people call this the "gun show loophole," but it applies to all private sales—including, for example, those that take place over the internet."
Yet there are those who claim that the "gun show loophole" doesn't exist. For instance, Politico claimed earlier this year that, contrary to Bernie Sanders' claims, "the "gun show" loophole doesn't actually exist. There's nothing in particular about gun shows that allows otherwise illegal gun sales to occur. Sanders instead is referring to an exclusion in the gun laws that does not require a background check in a private sale. It doesn't matter if that sale is at the seller's home or at a gun show, a background check is not legally required."
They have a point, but not in the way they want their readers to think: the "gun show loophole", although its name is somewhat misleading, does exist. So how is its name misleading? It suggests that the way background checks work is as shown in the chart below (Yes/No refers to whether a background check is required for such sales):
In fact, as Vox discussed recently, it works more like the chart below:
The above situation arises because if you are a private gun dealer, you can be unlicensed because "the law does not require a dealer’s license for private hobbyists and others who occasionally buy and sell guns for the purpose of enhancing or liquidating a collection." In contrast, if you repeatedly sell guns mainly to make money, you do need a license, regardless of whether you sell them in a store, at a show, or online. This matters because all licensed gun dealers must conduct background checks.
So now we've established that there is a loophole as regards gun background checks, but it's not properly called the "gun show loophole" but the "private sales loophole." Now we can move on to the question of whether increased background checks would save lives.
On this front, there is some evidence the answer might be yes, but studies supporting this conclusion have often acknowledged that there could just be correlation, not causation. For instance:
They have a point, but not in the way they want their readers to think: the "gun show loophole", although its name is somewhat misleading, does exist. So how is its name misleading? It suggests that the way background checks work is as shown in the chart below (Yes/No refers to whether a background check is required for such sales):
Licensed gun dealership (e.g. store)
|
Gun show
|
|
Licensed gun dealer
|
Yes
|
No
|
Unlicensed private gun dealer
|
Yes
|
No
|
| Licensed gun dealership (e.g. store) | Gun show | Online sales | Home sales | |
| Licensed gun dealer | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Unlicensed/private gun dealer | N/A | No | No | No |
So now we've established that there is a loophole as regards gun background checks, but it's not properly called the "gun show loophole" but the "private sales loophole." Now we can move on to the question of whether increased background checks would save lives.
On this front, there is some evidence the answer might be yes, but studies supporting this conclusion have often acknowledged that there could just be correlation, not causation. For instance:
- Sen et al.: "More extensive background checks prior to gun purchase are mostly associated with reductions in firearm homicide and suicide deaths. Several study limitations are acknowledged, and further research is called for to ascertain causality."
- Ruddell et al.: "...states with less stringent background checks on firearms purchases were significantly associated with firearms homicides."
Another study said that the best way to conduct background checks is at the local level, or, to wit, "Using local-level agencies to perform firearm background checks is associated with reduced rates of firearm suicide and homicide."
To be fair, there are studies showing that background checks don't work, as in the case of the Brady Act of 1994. A 2000 study showed that "Based on the assumption that the greatest reductions in fatal violence would be within states that were required to institute waiting periods and background checks, implementation of the Brady Act appears to have been associated with reductions in the firearm suicide rate for persons aged 55 years or older but not with reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates. However, the pattern of implementation of the Brady Act does not permit a reliable analysis of a potential effect of reductions in the flow of guns from treatment-state gun dealers into secondary markets."
In other words, it's possible that the Brady Act only failed because it didn't affect all states, rather than the more obvious conclusion, that strict gun laws don't work.
Also, here's a fun fact: background checks prevent some people with extensive criminal records from buying handguns, but not those whose record consists only of minor offenses, despite the fact that such people are at a much higher risk of committing crimes than others. This suggests that expanding background checks not in terms of which sales they cover but in terms of who they prevent from buying a gun may be a good idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment