I assume you mean all dealer sales, or am I misunderstanding the gunshow loophole?
Unlike you, I do think that tighter regulation on the supply of guns will ultimately reduce the amount of illegal guns. On issues like a black market, I agree that there will inevitably be some black market activity supporting illegal guns. That said, there’s no reason to believe that it will be as prevalent as we see today, if for no other reason than cost and economics.
You’re right, by definition, that if all guns were privately illegal then only criminals would have guns. In countries like Japan, for example, that is mostly true (within their few exceptions). That doesn’t address whether the overall number of illegal guns would drop and the overall number of gun homicides would drop. Ultimately, if one isn’t morally outraged by the blanket statement that only criminals would have guns, that statement isn’t the end of the analysis.
Houngan
1808
Re: the loophole, that’s for legal transfers, which cannot be done to a felon. The only function of the loophole is designed so that people who could otherwise buy a gun from a dealer legally can sell to each other, it in no way has a different ruleset than a normal purchase as far as criminal liability. The only function of closing the loophole is to inconvenience the people who are already lawful, since they’re the only ones who would bother, and to stop the less-than-ethical selling at a gun show. That’s why I usually chuck in mandatory registration, confiscation, and warrantless searches, since that would be what it would take to actually affect the illegal marketplace immediately.
To your second point, it would have a chilling effect on gun ownership, period, which you’ve bravely stated is your desired outcome. We differ on that, is all. I don’t think the decades of asymmetrical ownership would be worth the end result, especially when we see little actual effect in other countries that started with a much lower ownership than we have currently. In Australia there was a substitution effect on suicides, in the UK it’s about the same as it always was, while they enjoy more knife crime than we have gun crime. Japan’s always a special case, they never had guns to begin with, yet they off themselves like it’s a hobby.
Doesn’t the background check, in effect, prevent or at least hamper (e.g., they need a strawman) sale to a felon? Or, viewed another way, doesn’t it make the dealer also clearly culpable (e.g., didn’t run background check) in an illegal sale? Without it, you’re relying on self-representation from the buyer. Yes, the sale might be illegal, but the felon walked out with the gun anyways and the private seller can be truly ignorant or willfully ignorant. As to registration, yeah, I’m all for that too.
I care less about whether a sale was or was not legal than the gun being sold to a felon.
On other countries, Australia went from 7% ownership to 5% ownership after the ban/buyback of certain guns. Clearly, they didn’t start with a situation anywhere near ours.
Houngan
1810
It would hamper it in the case of a felon misrepresenting himself to an honest seller, yes. One step us responsible folks have taken is to only sell privately to CCW holders if we don’t know the person well, that’s a better background check than an FFL performs, although they could have committed a felony between gaining the license and the sale.
The quick answer that I like is for people to simply apply for a firearm purchase status on their license or whatever, and then have a phone number where I can punch in their ID and get a yes/no answer with no further information. Ownership privacy is preserved, most felons are thwarted, lawful citizens don’t have to travel to an FFL and pay a fee for him to do . . . exactly what we just did. Easy peasey.
RichVR
1811
I think you only shoot at targets in that shooter.
That seems like a big problem to me. It obviousness doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, and I’m not sure why.
“Hi. I’d like to buy that gun.”
Sure, are you a felon?"
"Sir! I’m offended by the question itself, of course I’m not a felon!
“Oh, fine, here’s your gun.”
I think when we’re depending on honesty of a felon to prevent them from getting a gun, it’s fair to flag that as a loophole.
As to convenience and cost to a buyer involved in closing the loophole. Tough.
No, we certainly do not.
So…in 2011 there were 29,613 crimes involving all knives in a year. 63.15 million people. One per every 2133 of the population. And you can be arrested for having a knife with you here, outside some pretty narrow parameters.
I can’t find a simple single source, but gun murders, assualts and robbery in America in 2010 were ~325,000, in a population of 311 millon. One per 955 of the population.
If you have better figures for the US, I’d love to see them - the UK figures are solid.
(And no, the Australian study said NO substitution effect…sigh)
Houngan
1815
The reason it’s called a loophole is because the gun shows are abusing a method that was meant to be used in private sales between individuals, not the other way around. I’m for closing the loophole, have always said so, and have offered two separate ways to do so that wouldn’t infringe on private sales and would strengthen checks during private sales. If I don’t seem particularly incensed it’s because I know that gun show sales represent only one or two percent of crime guns. I try to conserve outrage when possible.
I’m not in agreement on “infringe on private sales”, as I think there should be some checks there, too. Of course, I’m also for all-out registration, so no surprise there.
Basically, I think it’s important to address all, or at least the major, vectors for guns entering into the illegal stream. If [X] % of guns used in crime are illegal, but 100% started out as legal, it seems that they’re either stolen or illegally transferred, somewhere along the line.
Yes, I understand that additional legislation isn’t going to prevent illegal private transfer, but I would think registration and reporting requirements (backed with penalties) would have an effect. Similarly, the whole insurance thing seems to be a way to go about it.
Houngan
1817
As far as new guns entering the stream, it’s no doubt vastly straw purchases and illegal transfers to criminals after the fact (the distinction is just one of intent and time.) But how do you control that, without irrevocably tying a gun to its owner and doing periodic checks that they still have the gun? I don’t think you and I are actually in disagreement on the logic of this part of the issue, just that I’ve accepted the current state of best-effort and prefer it to a warrantless confiscation program. Half-assing a registration scheme just extends the period when good people will be unarmed vs. an armed criminal class.
As for insurance, I’m still curious what sort of structure it would entail, and how you can apply that A. To the poorest among us who still have the right to bear arms, and B. To those victims of gun crime where the perpetrator would not have purchased insurance (roughly 85%, just by felony count.)
Houngan
1818
Say what you will about the NRA, at least they had the guts to put their name on their lobbying arm, the NRA-ILA:
Headwaters Strategies, a Denver-based lobbying firm, has been hired by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s national gun-control organization.
According to the secretary of state’s website, Headwaters Strategies — which was founded in 2009 by Will Coyne and Adam Eichberg — has filed as a lobbying firm for Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG).
Houngan
1819
On being poor, one of two answers: a) tough, there’s a cost to owning a gun, and/or b) a large pool with sufficient subsidizing of premiums based on income. Obviously, the first is more likely than the second.
On the perp issue, I think it has to be Sinij’s answer: “Insurance of the last legal owner . . . . Rest - by the victim fund that all insurers contribute small % of total insurance costs.”
I’d couple that with serious penalties for failure to report a stolen weapon that ultimately is used in a crime.
Houngan
1821
That seems reasonable, until you realize it’s the flip side of the auto insurance industry. You’re talking about having insurers collect premiums from 15% of cost items while paying out 100%. Uninsured perpetrators will make up a 1/7 ratio to insured, which means the premiums will be nothing but punitive to those that will never use them. And what happens if someone decides to let their premiums drop, and has a convenient canoe accident while transporting all of their guns?
I just don’t see any way to sell that. Private insurance that apparently has to always pay out regardless of whether the bad guy was insured? How do you structure such a corporation?
I’m not getting your math or we’re not on the same page as to how the scheme is structured.
Insurers collect premiums from 100% of gunowners. Basically, buying a gun requires registration and proof of insurance. Insurance company pays out on any wrongful death involving a gun they insured, including a gun that “wandered” away from the legal owner. Optional penalty/loss of coverage for failure to report lost/stolen gun. As discussed, every gun starts its life as a legal gun, assigned to some owner. Presumably dealers/distributors would have to carry insurance, as well.
Presumably, the vast majority of owned and insured guns are not involved in a wrongful death, this provides a large premium base to cover payouts. We’re talking pure cost shifting of gun costs from the general public over to the gunowners themselves. This would hopefully better-assign actual costs and act as a incentive for responsible ownership.
Clearly, the whole scheme requires registration and tracking of guns.
RichVR
1823
Yeah. But I thought it a bit unusual to release it after their video game stance. I mean, if video games are bad and teach kids to shoot people, then why put out a video game that teaches kids to shoot?
Edit: Most video games have some kind of help in targeting. Are we to assume that kids that use this app will never play more violent shooters? If what they say about violent video games is true, then they are teaching the kids that play zombie games and others how to shoot better. Is that the best plan for the NRA? Violent video games are bad. But hey kids here’s a way to make your shots count.
Houngan
1824
Ah, sorry, I didn’t pick up on the “gun they insured” aspect. That makes sense, then. I would point out that it won’t help very much in the long run because they’ll only be insuring legally owned guns, and as I’ve mentioned many times that’s a small fraction of the ones used in crimes and murders. I thought you were proposing some kind of scheme where anyone hurt by a gun could successfully sue regardless of provenance.
In defense of the NRA, I’m pretty sure that they’re position is that shooting guns is okay. It’s the (unjustifiably) killing people part that they think is not okay.
Now, there is an argument that even the vast majority of shooters set it up so that the shooting is justiable (e.g., war, terrorists, etc.)
Houngan
1826
There’s a difference there, though. Gun people, as in people who handle real guns, tend to discourage any behavior that trivializes gun safety, such as paintball and airsoft. Shooting at other people is generally a no-no though that has softened a lot in the last ten years of videogame proliferation. I even barked at my nephews and niece this Christmas because my mother bought them blowguns, which they immediately pointed at each other. I know that may seem extreme to a lot of people but gun safety is a hard, fast, assholish set of rules that are never, ever broken for any reason. (otherwise someone could be shot, ya know.)
