Conducted by Garen J. Wintemute, a renowned gun researcher , public health expert and professor of emergency medicine at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Davis, the survey canvassed 1,601 federally licensed dealers and pawnbrokers in 43 states on how often attempts were made to acquire guns illegally and how sellers reacted to such attempts. Before the survey, there were almost no answers to those questions.
Among the findings, 67 percent of sellers had experienced at least one attempted straw purchase in the year before the survey, for an estimated 2,051 attempts, while 43 percent had experienced at least one attempted undocumented purchase. Extrapolated to nearly 10,000 similar sellers nationwide, that works out to 33,800 attempted straw purchases a year, and 37,000 attempted undocumented purchases.
via Real Data on Illegal Gun Sales – NYTimes.com.
In total, we have 70,800 extrapolated cases of people trying to circumvent the law. This study was made in 2011 and checking the NICS numbers for that year, we have a total of 16,454,951 firearms sold. That means that 0.43% of transactions at gun shops were attempts to break the law, less than half of one percent or 99.57% of all firearm transactions at gun shops were done by good honest people.
This is why Gun Control people hate us, the numbers keep supporting our side.
I hope is chaps Bloomy’s ass.
“That means that 0.43% of transactions at gun shops were attempts to break the law, less than half of one percent or 99.57% of all firearm transactions at gun shops were done by good honest people.”
This is actually not a logical conclusion to draw from the data you presented. I think it says that 0.43% of unlawful transactions were caught before they were finalized. From these data, we don’t know how many successful straw purchases were made during this same time period since most successful straw purchases are never found out.
I think of the Abramski case, recently decided by the Supreme Court. The chain of events that led to Abramski’s straw purchase being found out were crazy and most of the time would never happen.
Of course, this also raises the definitional question of what actually constitutes a “straw purchase.” E.g., a large number of the crime guns found in the District of Columbia can be traced back to a single gun store in Maryland. But investigating that store finds that they haven’t violated any laws (last I heard). But since criminals are often recidivists (and hence not legal gun owners), it defies my sense of how the world works to think that there isn’t a good deal of straw purchasing going on at that store.
Not saying that the store is doing anything wrong. Just saying that these data on straw purchases that were caught do not tell the whole story of straw purchasing.
A number of the caught ones are also false-positives. I’ve actually seen a couple of those happen.
OK, let’s do this: we assume for argument’s sake that it is ten times that number ( a sheer exaggeration) and that will still give us a 4.3%. The issue is that unless you are the ATF, it is rare to see a Straw Purchase (for criminals) go through. Most firearms used in the commission of crimes come from stolen lots or given by relatives/friends.
The need to go after gun stores is not because they are hot spot for criminal activity but to restrict gun ownership. It is gun control.
Miguel – I have the opposite view on this one. I would guess that the vast majority of straw purchases go through since a gun store owner really has no idea whether a person is answering form 4473 honestly and a central issue with straw purchasing has to do with the intentions of the buyer. (I was actually fortunate to hear the attorney who argued for Abramski in the Sup Ct, so although I am not an attorney, I got some insight into the issue from that. See: http://gunculture2point0.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/arguing-a-gun-case-in-the-supreme-court/)
This is why I say I don’t think most gun stores are doing anything wrong. In the Abramski case, it was Abramski who broke the law by making a straw purchase. I don’t think the gun store was held liable in any way, shape, or form. So, if gun stores are being persecuted because some people make straw purchases, that is wrong.
Last, you note that most crime guns are stolen or given by family/friends. W/r/to the latter, I am guessing that some (many?) of those are the result of straw purchases. That is, the family/friends know the person they are buying the gun for is prohibited and cannot buy a gun for himself.
So, again, your use of the statistics on straw purchasing in this case wasn’t great IMO. And the political conclusion you are drawing in your comment can actually be drawn without invoking the statstics anyway.
There is one bit of data that reflects the little value of straw purchases: Time to Crime.
Time-to-crime is the period of time (measured in days) between a firearm’s retail sale and law enforcement’s recovery of the firearm in connection with a crime. IIRC, Time to Crime in average for the US is 13 years which kinda kills the whole Straw Purchase for immediate use in crime schlep.
Is the Straw Purchasing going on? yes. Is it even statistically relevant for crime? nope. The law is simply there to add more time to a sentence but I doubt it does anything to curb Malum In Se crime.
13 years! That is amazing and, if true, very significant. I will explore further. Thanks for the thought and tip.
So in fact we don’t know if the law already eliminates 100% of straw purchases, is what you’re saying?
Akatsukami – I don’t think I was saying that we don’t know if the law already eliminates 100% of straw purchases. The law — we may both even agree — eliminates almost no straw purchases because it is very easy to lie on Form 4473 and not get caught. In fact, I need to look at the original study cited by Miguel to figure out how the gun store respondents even identified when people were trying to make straw purchases in the first place.
What I was saying is that Miguel was wrong to conclude from the study he cited that “0.43% of transactions at gun shops were attempts to break the law, less than half of one percent or 99.57% of all firearm transactions at gun shops were done by good honest people.”
Again, looking just at straw purchases that did not go through underestimates the number of straw purchases that are made. That is what I was saying.
Then the 4473 forms are ineffective and are a waste of the FBI’s time which could be otherwise spent actually catching people instead of casting a net so full of holes it lets through more fish than water.
That’s GCA 1968 and the original idea was the eventual registration at a Federal Level of every handgun in the Country, but it was amended enough to make it a joke. I have no idea how bad is the backlog or the forms or how accurate, but it is pretty much useless and ATF relies on the gun manufacturer’s records to do a tracing to point of sale and the the gun store to see who it got sold to. Nowadays with computers and all, it takes minutes and even then we still are hard pressed to find a case in where the tracing of a firearm has actually solved a crime.
That’s nice, but the Times missed printing the 99 percent legal bit and substituted this:
The survey also asked the dealers and pawnbrokers for their opinion of the prevalence of other retailers’ knowing participation in illegal sales. The median estimate was 3 percent. Extrapolating to roughly 57,000 retail licensees in the United States as of mid-2012, that’s an estimated 1,719 dealers and pawnbrokers nationwide selling firearms illegally.
Asked what motivated gun retailers to sell guns illegally, the number one reason was “he wants the extra income,” followed by “he thinks there is little risk of being caught and prosecuted,” and “he is supplying guns to a specific criminal group or extremist organization.”
Respondents generally agreed with one another that punishment for illegal sales was too lenient. They recommended a 10 year prison term and a $100,000 fine for multiple illegal sales motivated by personal gain. Current federal sentencing guidelines recommend prison for at most six-and-a-half years and a fine of $12,500 to $125,000.
I disagree with the 99% legal argument that Miguel made, but asking dealers to estimate the extent of other dealers’ dirty dealings (and the reasons why) is pretty bad science also. Gathering a large number of people’s opinions about something doesn’t make them facts.
so the obvious conclusion is that the Joyce-Foundation based study is full of crap and that is par for the course.
It does tend to discredit whatever good work that is being done with Joyce Foundation funding. As a social scientist myself, that is disappointing.
Read this article and check a “disclaimer” at the bottom: http://www.publicintegrity.org/2011/02/03/2158/romanian-weapons-modified-us-become-scourge-mexican-drug-war
The author contacted me via email for info about WASR rifles (I knew where he was coming from, but I did answer him) and later I found the article crapping over the gun stores helping the Mexican Cartels. It was not too long after that Fast & Furious broke out big time. I contacted the guy again seeking his opinion about the deal and if he changed his mind.
Never answered.
renowned gun researcher, public health expert. anti-2nd amendment activist, and professor of emergency medicine
Fixed it for you.
Wintemute’s name can be found all over a bunch of Joyce Foundation funded “studies.”
I bet the results of this one surprised the hell out of him
[…] Miguel Gonzales reports in his Gun Free Zone blog that an interesting study came out last week. The study by Garen J Wintremute was a look to […]