Universal Background Checks

[billh58]

To date, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) has prevented more than two million convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers from buying guns. The law also has a deterrent effect—prohibited purchasers are less likely to try to buy guns when they know comprehensive background check requirements are in place.

Unfortunately, current federal law requires criminal background checks only for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, which account for just 60% of all gun sales in the United States. A loophole in the law allows individuals not “engaged in the business” of selling firearms to sell guns without a license—and without processing any paperwork. That means that two out of every five guns sold in the United States change hands without a background check.

Though sometimes referred to as the “Gun Show Loophole,” the “private sales” described above include firearms sold at gun shows, through classified newspaper ads, the Internet, and between individuals virtually anywhere.

Unfortunately, a majority of states have yet to take any action to regulate the private sale of firearms. In order to guarantee that criminals, domestic abusers, the dangerously mentally ill and others are denied unchecked access to guns, the U.S. Congress should enact a federal law requiring universal background checks on all sales of firearms, including private sales.

http://csgv.org/issues/universal-background-checks/

“If we can save up about $200 real quick…we can go to the next gun show and find a private dealer and buy ourselves some bad-ass AB-10 machine pistols.”

– Columbine killer Eric Harris, who was 17 years old at the time and prohibited under federal law from purchasing a firearm. Harris and fellow shooter Dylan Klebold obtained the firearms they used to commit mass murder through private sales at Colorado gun shows.

Of course the right-wing gun lobby claims that there is no "gun show loophole." Facts prove otherwise, and 40% of all gun sales and transactions occur without a background check which provides a ready source of guns for criminals, and those who could not pass a background check.

For every criminal who wants a gun there are more than enough "responsible gun owners" who are willing to sell them a gun -- no questions asked. Using the 40% statistic, of the 300,000,000 guns estimated to be in circulation in the USA, 120,000,000 belong to people who could not pass a background check.

Responsible gun owners? Maybe, and maybe not, which is why public carry is not guaranteed by the Second Amendment, nor should the majority of American citizens who are not gun owners be forced to be exposed to guns in the public venue.

[Hoyt]

1. Yet, gunners swear there is no gun show loophole. All gun transfers need to go through background

check.

The gunners will say, give us access to the database. But no one should have access to it but those with the proper licenses -- an FFL. So gunners are going to have to suck up the cost or pass it along to the purchaser so that transfers go through an FFL who has responsibilities and accountability requirements that the guys below don't have if they can perform a background check of anyone with a fistful of cash.