[Psudo]

I found an interesting statistical report of the background checks required before purchasing guns under the Brady Act.

A little background: in 1981, a mental patient attempted to assassinate President Reagan, shooting both the President and bodyguard James Brady nonfatally with a handgun. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, named after said bodyguard, was passed in 1993 and went into effect in 1994. It required a criminal background check to be conducted via the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) on anyone attempting to purchase a firearm before that purchase could take place.

This report [pdf] publicizes some statistics from the use of NICS in 2008 (the most recent year for which data is publicly available). Here are some highlights:

5,813,249 NICS background checks were run by licensed gun shops.
70,725 (1.2%) denials were referred to the ATF's Brady Operations Branch. These folks have to wait a day or two before they can, if cleared, proceed with the transaction.

78,906 NICS total denials were screened by Brady Operations (the 70,725 from above plus about 8,000 from law enforcement agencies directly).
73,333 (93%) of the denials were overturned. That is, the initial failure to pass the background check was due to some mistake, such as a typo in the application or a case of mistaken identity.
66,745 (85%) of the denials were not referred for investigation nor overturned -- that is, insufficient evidence existed to suggest that they intended to possess a firearm illegally, so the purchase attempt was blocked but presumed to be an honest mistake.
9,689 (13%) of the denials were overturned, either exonerated by ATF investigation or successfully appealed by the customer.
5,573 (7%) were referred to ATF field agencies for further investigation.

2,154 ATF field agency investigations resulted in unlawful possession rulings.
1,218 (57%) unlawful possession cases resulted in the retrieval of 1,225 firearms from unlawful owners.

147 cases were referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office for prosecution.
105 (71%) cases were prosecuted (in 42 cases, the prosecutor declined to prosecute).
43 cases resulted in guilty pleas or verdicts.
7 cases resulted in guilty pleas or verdicts to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
1 defendant was convicted on multiple [four] charges.

Supporters of the Brady Act will note that 1,225 unlawfully possessed firearms were removed from circulation, 43 defendants were convicted, and attempts to unlawfully purchase firearms from federally licensed gun shops are down 4% since the previous year.

Critics will note that 85% of prevented sales were innocent mistakes, 93% 13% of prevented firearm sales were legal firearm sales (eg, overturned denials), only 1 background check in 2,700 leads to concluding unlawful possession, only 1 in 135,000 results in a conviction, only 1 in 830,000 results in a firearm possession by a felon conviction, and no attempt is made to prevent felons from procuring firearms except from federally licensed gun shops. (There is theft and a black market, ya know.)

My take: the NICS program effectively ensures legal gun shops follow the law, and is in that sense a success. It does nothing to prevent violence or make people safer; in that sense, it is a failure.

In related news, crime generally, and homicide and firearm assault especially, are way down in Washington, D.C., since the handgun ban was declared unconstitutional.

Edit: underlined italics denotes inserted text, while deleted strikeout denotes removed text. Thanks to Quantum_Wizard for catching my mistakes and setting me straight.

[Psudo]

Seriously? No comment on all this?

I'll try again. There are around a quarter of a million billion guns in the United States, and this bill recovered 1,225 illegally possessed firearms. Does anyone imagine that is a serious reduction in illegal firearm possession?

7 convictions on unlawful possession by a felon. Does anyone imagine that is a serious impediment to the unlawful possession rate?

62 prosecution attempts did not result in guilty verdicts or pleas. 36 were convictions on paperwork problems, failures to comply with this law itself. Legally authorized gun customers were improperly denied sale about 70,000 times. Does anyone think this law is not an intrusion into law-abiding gun owners' lives and rights?

Does this law serve a purpose worth the intrusion and impediment on legal purchases of firearms by persons legally deemed to have a right to possess them? No, it clearly does not. It impedes law-abiding gun customers at a radically disproportionate rate without having any relevant reduction to illegal possession of guns by felons or the use of guns in violent crime.

This misdirected law does not deserve to be on the books. How is it that no one finds the statistics that bear that out worthy of comment?

Edit: Thanks to Quantum_Wizard for catching that mistake.

[DrCaleb]

Psudo wrote:

This misdirected law does not deserve to be on the books. How is it that no one finds the statistics that bear that out worthy of comment?

Because we are Canadian? They are interesting statistics, but bear no effect on us at all.

[Unsound]

I hesitate to get involved in gun control debates because my own feeling on thematter are rather mixed, and the sheer number oconflicting stats and studies floating around out there is a little daunting and cnfusing. That said, on this particular issue, I guess my first question would be, am i wrong when I think that gun shows are exempt from these background checks? And if so, wouldn't it make sense that most people with any brains who have doubts about their ability to pass a background test, would go to gun shows instead of law-abiding shops?

[PostFactum]

For me gun ownership is like something from another world. I used that noone from civilians here has a gun. Even patrol cops have only a stick and only special police forces have guns.

[Murray_Smith]

Here are the oversimplified arguments:

Libs: If no one has guns, then society will be peaceful because no one will ever get shot.
Cons: If everyone has guns, then society will be peaceful because no one wants to get shot.

[PostFactum]

Murray_Smith wrote:

Here are the oversimplified arguments:

because no one wants to get shot.

Because no one knows when he will get shot.

[BartSimpson]

Unsound wrote:

I hesitate to get involved in gun control debates because my own feeling on thematter are rather mixed, and the sheer number oconflicting stats and studies floating around out there is a little daunting and cnfusing. That said, on this particular issue, I guess my first question would be, am i wrong when I think that gun shows are exempt from these background checks? And if so, wouldn't it make sense that most people with any brains who have doubts about their ability to pass a background test, would go to gun shows instead of law-abiding shops?

Gun shows are not exempt from background checks or state-mandated waiting periods EXCEPT in the case of antique, black powder, or collector guns which are mostly unregulated due to their extremely low occurence in criminal acts.

[Lemmy]

DrCaleb wrote:

Psudo wrote:

This misdirected law does not deserve to be on the books. How is it that no one finds the statistics that bear that out worthy of comment?

Because we are Canadian? They are interesting statistics, but bear no effect on us at all.

Yup. This is a topic for an American forum. It's no more relevent to Canadians than statistics on Turkish building code violations, Portuguese income tax fraud or Australian snake bites.

[BartSimpson]

Murray_Smith wrote:

Here are the oversimplified arguments:

Libs: If no one has guns, then society will be peaceful because no one will ever get shot.
Cons: If everyone has guns, then society will be peaceful because no one wants to get shot.

Those are ideals.

In practice they translate as:

Libs: Law abiding people should not have guns and we'll do next to nothing to take guns away from criminals or to punish them when they kill law abiding people. And if a law abiding citizen uses a gun to defend themselves from a criminal we'll treat that person as a criminal and subject them to harsher treatment than we will the criminal the person was defending themselves from in the first place.

Cons: Any law abiding person wanting to keep or carry a firearm should not be prevented from doing so and if criminals get shot or killed in the commission of a crime by a law abiding citizen then no penalty shall be placed upon that citizen.

[PostFactum]

Lemmy wrote:

DrCaleb wrote:

Psudo wrote:

This misdirected law does not deserve to be on the books. How is it that no one finds the statistics that bear that out worthy of comment?

Because we are Canadian? They are interesting statistics, but bear no effect on us at all.

Yup. This is a topic for an American forum. It's no more relevent to Canadians than statistics on Turkish building code violations, Portuguese income tax fraud or Australian snake bites.

Why? Bart and Psudo can have fun here

[Unsound]

BartSimpson wrote:

Unsound wrote:

I hesitate to get involved in gun control debates because my own feeling on thematter are rather mixed, and the sheer number oconflicting stats and studies floating around out there is a little daunting and cnfusing. That said, on this particular issue, I guess my first question would be, am i wrong when I think that gun shows are exempt from these background checks? And if so, wouldn't it make sense that most people with any brains who have doubts about their ability to pass a background test, would go to gun shows instead of law-abiding shops?

Gun shows are not exempt from background checks or state-mandated waiting periods EXCEPT in the case of antique, black powder, or collector guns which are mostly unregulated due to their extremely low occurence in criminal acts.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[BartSimpson]

Unsound wrote:

BartSimpson wrote:

Unsound wrote:

I hesitate to get involved in gun control debates because my own feeling on thematter are rather mixed, and the sheer number oconflicting stats and studies floating around out there is a little daunting and cnfusing. That said, on this particular issue, I guess my first question would be, am i wrong when I think that gun shows are exempt from these background checks? And if so, wouldn't it make sense that most people with any brains who have doubts about their ability to pass a background test, would go to gun shows instead of law-abiding shops?

Gun shows are not exempt from background checks or state-mandated waiting periods EXCEPT in the case of antique, black powder, or collector guns which are mostly unregulated due to their extremely low occurence in criminal acts.

Thanks for clearing that up.

No problem. I often hear of the so-called 'gun show loophole' and the fact of the matter is that no such thing exists. A gun transaction is a gun transaction regardless of where it takes place and it is subject to all applicable laws.

As to the collector guns - that usually refers to commemorative guns that are embellished with fine engraving, gold inlay, or they sometimes have an intrinsic value - like, say a James Bond PPK. The value of these guns would be vastly diminished if they were ever actually fired and the laws usually recognize that.

[Quantum_Wizard]

Psudo wrote:

There are around a quarter of a million guns in the United States

Is this number really correct? It sounds way too low. Did you perhaps mean a quarter of a billion?

Psudo wrote:

this bill recovered 1,225 illegally possessed firearms. Does anyone imagine that is a serious reduction in illegal firearm possession?

How high portion of firearm possession is illegal?

Presumably, due to this law some people will not even try to acquire firearms from licensed shops, though on the other hand some of them will probably acquire a firearm some other way. It's difficult to speculate how high these numbers are.

Psudo wrote:

Legally authorized gun customers were improperly denied sale about 70,000 times. Does anyone think this law is not an intrusion into law-abiding gun owners' lives and rights?

From what I understood, it seems that these only resulted in delay of a few days.

Psudo wrote:

It impedes law-abiding gun customers at a radically disproportionate rate

I suspect that there are so many 'false positives' at least partly because legal attempts to purchase a firearm are so much more common.

My position: It would seem to me that the situation is not quite as bleak for this law as you made it out to be. It might still not be good enough to justify the law's existence, however.

Summary of my position: I don't really have an opinion.

[BartSimpson]

Quantum, various studies on both sides of the issue have shown that waiting periods have no measurable effect on crime, suicide, or etc. and most states have now abandoned waiting periods in favor of the instant check process allowed under US Federal law.