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Gun Show Background Checks: Useless Scheme, with a Hidden Agenda?
BY ELWOOD P. POWELL
"Gun show background checks" are a useless scheme, built around the failed notion that regulating law-abiding gun owners will reduce crime.
Everyone wants to reduce violent crime. However, most thoughtful people will reject this current proposed legislation when they discover it has little to do with crime and more to do with a hidden agenda of gun confiscation.
First, gun shows account for less than 1 percent of guns used by criminals. The Department of Justice studied tens of thousands of convicted criminals in 1991 and 1997. Both times they proved that the overwhelming majority of the guns used by criminals came from street or other illegal sources (39.2 percent), or friends or family (39.6 percent). Gun shows? Only 0.7 percent.
Second, every licensed dealer already must do background checks for all sales at a gun show. Therefore, any "gun show background checks" are really aimed at a small number of private individuals who are not "dealers" (or the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would make them get a dealer license). These folks are hobbyists selling part of their collection or individuals selling grandpa's old gun or trading in an old gun for a new hunting rifle or personal protection weapon.
It is already illegal for anyone to sell a gun to a criminal, with or without a background check.
Third, background checks are nearly worthless. Identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in America today, and fake identification will get any criminal past a background check. Clever crooks also get a friend or relative (with a clean record who can pass the check) to make a "straw purchase" for them, a federal felony.
Fourth, even the dumb crooks who do get caught by background checks are seldom prosecuted. Utah's Department of Public Safety reports that out of 129,931 background checks in the last two years, some 3,287 were denied for one reason or another, about the same as the national average of 2.5 percent.
We are unaware of a single prosecution by Utah authorities in the last three years of anyone who failed a background check. Laws not enforced should be repealed, not expanded. Until recently, federal prosecutions nationwide only nailed several dozen out of the claimed "800,000 fugitives, felons and stalkers" stopped by background checks. Federal prosecutions have risen recently as the Bush administration focuses on criminals, not more restrictions on the law-abiding.
Claims that terrorists will arm themselves from gun shows are ridiculous. Our poorly guarded borders leak tons of drugs and thousands of illegal aliens daily. The real threat is that terrorists will smuggle in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or anti-aircraft missiles. They certainly don't need the few rifles or pistols they might illegally get at a gun show.
Gun show background checks are a critical step in the gun control extremists' agenda. If they can force those private transactions into the federal system, their next demand will be that every other private gun transfer, even from father to son, go into the federal system. This would provide the data for a de facto centralized registration system of every gun and gun owner.
Worldwide, gun registration has inevitably led to gun confiscation. In Germany under Hitler, and more recently in England and Australia, registration was followed by confiscation. In New York and California, (former) gun owners registered their guns, and they got confiscated, too.
How well does the ultimate goal of gun show background check crowd work? That is, after all the victims are disarmed? Australia and England now have virtually banned private gun ownership. However, criminals never registered or turned in their guns and are on unfettered crime sprees in both nations. Armed robberies and burglaries of occupied homes are commonplace. The streets of London now are less safe than those of New York City.
Washington, D.C., and Chicago are two of the most violent cities in our nation. Both have had virtually total bans on private gun ownership for over two decades. Having disarmed all the victims, they now engage in mental gymnastics to claim that their high crime rates are due to nearby states with half as much crime not banning guns in their areas.
What part of "failed experiment" do they not understand?
Fellow citizens, gun control does not work, so let's not take one more step down that slippery slope toward registration and confiscation. It has been tried elsewhere and proven to fail every time.
"It's not the guns, it's the criminals, stupid!"
-----
Elwood P. Powell is chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council.
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Feb/02092003/commenta/27530.asp
BY ELWOOD P. POWELL
"Gun show background checks" are a useless scheme, built around the failed notion that regulating law-abiding gun owners will reduce crime.
Everyone wants to reduce violent crime. However, most thoughtful people will reject this current proposed legislation when they discover it has little to do with crime and more to do with a hidden agenda of gun confiscation.
First, gun shows account for less than 1 percent of guns used by criminals. The Department of Justice studied tens of thousands of convicted criminals in 1991 and 1997. Both times they proved that the overwhelming majority of the guns used by criminals came from street or other illegal sources (39.2 percent), or friends or family (39.6 percent). Gun shows? Only 0.7 percent.
Second, every licensed dealer already must do background checks for all sales at a gun show. Therefore, any "gun show background checks" are really aimed at a small number of private individuals who are not "dealers" (or the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would make them get a dealer license). These folks are hobbyists selling part of their collection or individuals selling grandpa's old gun or trading in an old gun for a new hunting rifle or personal protection weapon.
It is already illegal for anyone to sell a gun to a criminal, with or without a background check.
Third, background checks are nearly worthless. Identity theft is the fastest-growing crime in America today, and fake identification will get any criminal past a background check. Clever crooks also get a friend or relative (with a clean record who can pass the check) to make a "straw purchase" for them, a federal felony.
Fourth, even the dumb crooks who do get caught by background checks are seldom prosecuted. Utah's Department of Public Safety reports that out of 129,931 background checks in the last two years, some 3,287 were denied for one reason or another, about the same as the national average of 2.5 percent.
We are unaware of a single prosecution by Utah authorities in the last three years of anyone who failed a background check. Laws not enforced should be repealed, not expanded. Until recently, federal prosecutions nationwide only nailed several dozen out of the claimed "800,000 fugitives, felons and stalkers" stopped by background checks. Federal prosecutions have risen recently as the Bush administration focuses on criminals, not more restrictions on the law-abiding.
Claims that terrorists will arm themselves from gun shows are ridiculous. Our poorly guarded borders leak tons of drugs and thousands of illegal aliens daily. The real threat is that terrorists will smuggle in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons or anti-aircraft missiles. They certainly don't need the few rifles or pistols they might illegally get at a gun show.
Gun show background checks are a critical step in the gun control extremists' agenda. If they can force those private transactions into the federal system, their next demand will be that every other private gun transfer, even from father to son, go into the federal system. This would provide the data for a de facto centralized registration system of every gun and gun owner.
Worldwide, gun registration has inevitably led to gun confiscation. In Germany under Hitler, and more recently in England and Australia, registration was followed by confiscation. In New York and California, (former) gun owners registered their guns, and they got confiscated, too.
How well does the ultimate goal of gun show background check crowd work? That is, after all the victims are disarmed? Australia and England now have virtually banned private gun ownership. However, criminals never registered or turned in their guns and are on unfettered crime sprees in both nations. Armed robberies and burglaries of occupied homes are commonplace. The streets of London now are less safe than those of New York City.
Washington, D.C., and Chicago are two of the most violent cities in our nation. Both have had virtually total bans on private gun ownership for over two decades. Having disarmed all the victims, they now engage in mental gymnastics to claim that their high crime rates are due to nearby states with half as much crime not banning guns in their areas.
What part of "failed experiment" do they not understand?
Fellow citizens, gun control does not work, so let's not take one more step down that slippery slope toward registration and confiscation. It has been tried elsewhere and proven to fail every time.
"It's not the guns, it's the criminals, stupid!"
-----
Elwood P. Powell is chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council.
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Feb/02092003/commenta/27530.asp
