Brady Center Survey

[willbrink]

Folks, the Brady Center has an online survey regarding “assault weapons” and such. Can be found here:

http://www.bradynetwork.org/site/Pag...autologin=true

Topics of the survey:

1. GETTING ASSAULT WEAPONS OFF THE STREETS (AWB)

2. EXTENDING BACKGROUND CHECKS TO ALL GUN SALES ("loophole")

3. STOPPING BULK SALES TO GUN TRAFFICKERS

4. STRENGTHENING THE POWER OF LAW ENFORCEMENT (BATFE)

The only one that makes any sense at all is #4. However, is there real data to support this statement:


"Using crime gun trace data, law enforcement can identify the 1% of gun dealers who supply nearly 60% of crime guns. Even with hundreds of violations, most of these rogue gun dealers remain open for business because of restrictions Congress and the Bush Administration have placed on ATF's ability to inspect them and revoke their licenses."

Knowing how the Brady Center has no problems with fabricating data and "facts' I don't trust anything they say. I don't believe for a second that gun dealers found to be violating state or federal laws remain open long. For example, in MA, where I know several gun store owners, you sneeze wrong and they are all to happy to shut you down and take away your FFL, etc. Where do these Brady figures come from? I could almost support them here if it were actually true, which I doubt very much, sort of like their claim of 'loopholes' at gun shows which don't seem to exist.

 

[Werewolf]

If you're gonna hit this poll than make sure you copy/paste the link into a new window in your browser - otherwise they'll know exactly where you came from and either delete your answers or close the poll.

On the other hand it is possible they'll just make up their own answers and it won't matter how people answer the poll whether for or against.

 

[Werewolf]

OOOOPS! Too late. The poll is already gone.

 

[cbsbyte]

Link seems to be dead.

 

[1911austin]

This is being covered in another thread http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=258699

Several THR members took the poll. I guess the remove poll where they are not getting the results they want. Kinda like small kids "taking their toys and going home"

 

[antsi]

There are a lot of ways those kinds of statistics can be deceptive, but one of the problems with the "crime guns" statistic is defining a "crime gun."

In some studies, "crime gun" means "a law enforcement inquiry was run on that gun's serial number." You wind up with an awful lot of serial number traces that don't connect to any real "crime."

Example: you get pulled over for speeding on your way to the range, the officer asks if you have any guns, you tell him you have a gun in the trunk, he runs a serial number trace. Bingo, "crime gun." The crime? Speeding.

This is particularly inflated when you are dealing with a city or state that has super-strict gun control laws. In Chicago, for instance, any time the police become aware that any ordinary citizen is in posession of a handgun, that gun is seized and a trace is run. Bingo, "crime gun."

Also, statistics show that the vast majority of guns used in actual violent crimes are stolen from someone else. The implication that the dealer directly sold the gun to a criminal is not likely true.

Cities like Chicago, where there are no gun stores, tend to have just a few large high-volume gun stores on their outskirts. Their business is artificially inflated because this huge neighboring population has no access to gun stores. Not coincidentally, Chicago is a high crime area and those guns have a higher-than average chance of being stolen by criminals or having serial number traces run for non-violent "broke our stupid gun laws" violations.

Therefore, those gun stores wind up having a disproportionately high number of law enforcement traces on guns they sold, even if they NEVER sold a SINGLE gun directly to a criminal.

People say that statistics lie. That's not really quite true; a better way to say it is that liars have ways of twisting statistics to make their lies more believable.