Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Study Finds Vast Online Marketplace for Guns without Background Checks

The marketplace for firearms on the Internet, where buyers are not required to undergo background checks, is so vast that advocates for stricter regulations now consider online sales a greater threat than the gun-show loophole.
A new study by Third Way , a center-left think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, found that thousands of guns, including so-called assault weapons, are for sale online and that many prospective buyers were shopping online specifically to avoid background checks.
The study focused on Armslist.com — a popular classified site similar to Craigslist.org that facilitates private sales of firearms and ammunition based on location — and analyzed listings in 10 states where senators voted against a background-check compromise this spring.
“At this point, this is the biggest loophole in the background check system,” said Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, director of social policy and politics at Third Way, an organization that has been active in the gun-control movement for years.
Background checks — designed to keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, domestic violence perpetrators or the severely mentally ill — are mandatory for gun sales at retail stores, but not at gun shows or for private sales, such as between neighbors and family members or between individuals online.
The National Rifle Association and other gun rights supporters have advocated against expanding the background check system because they believe doing so would not stop society’s most dangerous people from procuring weapons and eventually would lead to even stricter gun regulations, including a federal registry.
The NRA, in a policy statement on its Web site, notes that most firearms sales online go through a federally licensed firearms dealer in the home state of the buyer. “The reality is that the Internet does not provide any legal opportunity to simply buy a firearm as if it were a pair of jeans,” the statement says.

39 comments:

  1. If the only intent is insure that guns aren't sold to prohibited persons, the fix is quite easy. Allow access to NICS to gun owners so they can check if the person is prohibited. There would be no need to include any firearm data.
    If the 80 to 90 percent number thrown out there of people backing gun checks, the problem will then be solved.

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  2. This again? If you sell across state lines without a licensed dealer, you've committed a crime. If you sell in state, that's a private sale, no matter how you locate the buyer.

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    1. And that's a major source of guns used by criminals. Why do you want to make it easy for them, you of all people, big thug killer wannabe that you are?

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    2. Legal products should be available in all states to all good citizens. Regarding the rest, stop lying about me.

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    3. Just because you didn't accuse Greg, in graphic terms, of buttsex doesn't mean that your insult there is any less despicable than the shit Kevin kept saying. Kevin's comments were juvenile and pointless, whereas your accusation of Greg being a wannabe killer is a more serious, and therefore a more vile slander.

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    4. Thanks, Tennessean. Of course, expecting fairness from people who have thrown out the concept of individual rights is likely to be an exercise in disappointment.

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    5. Greg defends every scenario we've ever come up with of lethal self defense. He has never admitted to the slightest possibility of there being a false or unnecessary DGU. To me that's being a thug-killer wannabe.

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    6. http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2013/07/new-orleans-homeowner-charged-with.html#comment-form

      I didn't defend this guy. I'm just careful with how I judge things when I know only what the local news tells me.

      But Mikeb, haven't you learned not to play memory games with me yet?

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    7. That's a pointless emotional appeal, Mike. Rather than defend your accusation, you have turned it into an opinion based on a highly personalized definition of the terms.

      Words and names like you called Greg have meanings other than what you give them to walk back from hurling them at opponents.

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    8. Greg, you said the guy "seems to have overreacted." He shot an unarmed 14-year-old in the fucking head. You call your observation "not defending him?"

      Even in the worst cases like this, you carefully downplay the criminal actions of the gun owner.

      That's because you're a thug-killer wannabe. Own it.

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    9. Ah, yes, saying that the guy's reaction was wrong and excessive is such a defense of the man!

      Greg could have called for the man's head and you'd still call it a defense of the man because Greg didn't suggest applying thumbscrews.

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    10. Now you're the one who's exaggerating in your bizarre zeal to support Greg, right or wrong.

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    11. Mikeb, I try to be careful about allowing all the facts to come in before I come to a conclusion. I said that on the face of it, the man in New Orleans made a bad decision. There could be more to the story.

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  3. This is worse than the "gunshow loophole"!!!!!11!!

    Except that it's merely another aspect of the legality of private sales. It's not an accidental loophole, it was an intentionally created exemption in the Brady Bill.

    But the gun controllers here are pretending that this is some accidental loophole, that gun shows are another, etc. But what should we expect except dishonesty from a group affiliated with this administration.

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    1. Nobody on my side is pretending this is anything except what it is. Your side, however, is busy pretending that it makes sense to allow disqualified people to buy guns privately without a background check. That's the dishonest pretending that's going on - it's on your side of the argument.

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    2. Please, Mike. I'll grant you that YOU typically keep the private sales issue in view, but look at the article--it makes a big deal about this being the "internet loophole" and about it being an even bigger problem than the "gunshow loophole." They're doing this because the general public doesn't like the proposals to end all private sales, so they've invented two "loopholes" that are both really the same issue, and they're trying to gin up support for closing these loopholes, but they bait with that, and switch to the elimination of private sales.

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    3. Bullshit, T. The problem is that disqualified people can easily buy guns. What the fuck's the difference what they call it. There's no ginning up of anything. It's already horrendously bad. Calling it a loophole doesn't make it worse.

      Why do you want disqualified people to be able to buy guns?

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    4. I'll give you my answer: It's because I've seen nothing in your proposals that would stop that without also keeping millions of good citizens from being able to buy them.

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    5. You're denying the obvious truth about the tactics being taken by the people in this article.

      As for your question, we've been over it many times. I don't want criminals and the unstable armed any more than you do. I do not, however, think that your proposals will do anything but complicate the market for the law-abiding, and barely inconvenience the prohibited persons.

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    6. Greg, if private sales were forbidden, millions of good citizens would not be able to get guns? Is that your position?

      Isn't it more honest, I know you don't go in for that kind of thing, but isn't it more honest to say this would only be an inconvenience. Anybody who wants a gun and is qualified could still get one, just not privately with no background check.

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    7. Do I have to go through the list again? Fine:

      You want psychological tests twice a year and then annually for gun owners. You want medical exams, including physical fitness and eye tests. You want background checks. You want licensing for gun owners. You want those licenses to be may issue, subject to the approval of the local police, politicians, and mental health professionals. You don't want anyone who drinks alcohol to have a gun. You want home inspections for gun owners. You want exceedingly limited issue if any at all of carry licenses. You want bans on some calibers, limits on magazine capacity, and bans on some designs. You want laws requiring safes that cannot be removed from the home. You want laws requiring all guns to be locked up when not immediately in use. You want gun owners to have insurance for their property and for any ill effects that might come out of having it. You want limits on the type of ammunition a person may own and the composition of the bullets. You want limits on the amount of ammunition a person may have or buy, with background checks run on buyers.

      I'm sure I'm missing something. But as I've asked you many times before, how does all of that constitute an inconvenience?

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    8. Millions of good citizens would end up committing felonies at some point, and should they be caught they will lose a lit more than just their guns. That's not a mere inconvenience.

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    9. We've gone through the proposals so far and found that they were horrible bills. You even admitted that the last background check bill would have been problematic and overcriminalised (not that you pulled support from it, you merely acknowledged that it went a bit too far). This is what the attempts look like; they are not mere inconveniences but awful legal minefields to trap law abiding citizens.

      And this merely covers your side's proposals for ending private sales--it doesn't even touch on the other proposals Greg mentions such as the ones creating catch-22's on ammo where lead is banned, but other bullets are banned for being "armor piercing" since they are harder than lead. Not true armor piercing ammo according to the Military definition, but only according to the ATF's definition that covers most bullets made of materials other than lead since most things are harder than lead.

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    10. Greg, that's a pretty good description of my position, except for this one evaggeration: "You don't want anyone who drinks alcohol to have a gun." You just can't help yourself, can you? It's impossible for you to not put a little spin on the thing.

      I say that's a pain-in-the-ass inconvenience, nothing more. Having to register and insure your car and on top of that maintain a drivers license AND wear a seat belt. That is a fucking inconvenience but you do it and you do it without complaint.

      In the same way you'll eventually come around to the stricter gun control laws of the future. Either that or you'll do like TS is so concerned with, you'll decide to say the hell with it and become a felon. But, as he keeps pointing out that wouldn't be your fault, that would be the fault of the unfair laws.

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    11. Mike, if you turn millions of currently perfectly legal acts into felonies, some people are going to be caught up in it. I'm not even talking about the "hell with it" crowd.

      Mike, if I were king, and made some silly law where everyone has to stop what they are doing at 9 am every Thursday morning and sing "I'm a little tea pot", would you call that an inconvenience? It's not hard. It doesn't take much time. Sure you'd bitch and moan about it, but it's only an inconvenience, right? Ok, but what's the punishment? If I throw people in prison for five years who don't sing it, would you still call it an inconvenience? Or would you call that oppressive and draconian?

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    12. The fact that you can't distinguish between inconveniences and major infringements on our rights is why you must never be allowed to win. The kind of tyranny that you'd tolerate in the name of your goals is exactly the sort of thing this country was founded to prevent.

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    13. You call them major infringements and tyranny, but you're prone to verbal diarrhea. I call them reasonable restrictions which in some cases would prove inconvenient to the law abiding.

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    14. And that, Mikeb, is why you aren't winning and aren't going to win. You think Americans will tolerate more and more bureaucracy in the exercise of their rights.

      Here's a clue: Most Americans believe that guns are a right. Remember the reaction to Obama's mealy mouthed and ham-handed efforts at healthcare reform? If politicians push your proposals, they'll get a shellacking that would make 2010 look like fun and games.

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    15. How do you feel about trans-vaginal ultrasound requirements before getting an abortion? Simple inconvenience?

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    16. You're comparing THAT to the background check requirement???

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    17. "Here's a clue: Most Americans believe that guns are a right."

      Yeah, a God-given, basic-human, fundamental, natural and Constitutionally protected right.

      Most Americans laugh at such fanaticism.

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  4. And the transaction has to happen in person. Person to person shipping of firearms is forbidden. Everytime your side complains about armslist.com, this law is not mentioned. They want to make it sound like you make a few clicks and a gun shows up at your door.

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    1. Nonsense, they don't make it sound like anything other than what it is, a way for disqualified people to buy guns without a background check. The real question is why do you support that? Another question is why are you surprised when I associate you lawful gun owners with your first cousins the criminal gun owners?

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    2. That's not what it's about, and you know it, Mikeb. You want to restrict gun ownership to the tiny few, and we're fighting you on that.

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    3. You know what I support and don't support regarding background checks. I don't support millions of new felonies for all the times two LEGAL people make a transaction.

      Regarding your "nonsense" claim, it's time to back that up. Show me one advocate for closing the "online loophole" who mentions that the current law does not allow any private to private shipping of firearms, therefore the transactions that don't require a background check must be face-to-face transactions. Find me one quote. The quote can even be from you.

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    4. "You want to restrict gun ownership to the tiny few, and we're fighting you on that."

      What "tiny few" would that be? 50% of the current gun owners would still be over 30 million. Is that a "tiny few?"

      You really do have a flexible way of defining terms depending on their context.

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    5. But Mikeb, you forget that I have no reason to believe anything you say.

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    6. You want to disarm 50%. Jade wants to disarm at least 75%. Both of you would go beyond those numbers because you would disarm the family members of prohibited persons under your systems.

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  5. And that's a major source of guns used by criminals. Why do you want to make it easy for them, you of all people, big thug killer wannabe that you are?

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