Banning Private Sales Costs Lives (Published Study)

In a paper published in 2008, comparing highly regulated Californian gun shows with relatively unregulated Texas gun shows, there was no statistical difference in suicide rates, but the Texas shows, with far less regulation, showed a statistically significant drop in the homicide rate.

From the study:

"But our results provide little evidence of a gun show-induced increase in mortality in Texas. In fact, we find that in the two weeks following a gun show, the average number of gun homicides declines in the area surrounding the gun show. Aggregating across all gun shows in the state, we find that there are approximately 16 fewer gun homicides resulting from the 200 gun shows in the average year. In the sections below, we discuss several possible explanations for this counterintuitive finding. However, it is important to keep in mind that while these results are statistically significant, they are quite small – representing just one percent of all homicides in Texas in the average year."

This was not a small study. It included data for 10 years and 3,300 gun shows. The two states chosen, California and Texas, contain 20 percent of the population of the United States. It was not conducted by firearm freedom advocates or the NRA.

The evidence is clear. Stopping private sales at guns shows costs lives. President Obama's demand that all private sales be approved of by state agents before they can be made, is counterproductive and will cost innocent lives.

If this seems counterintuitive to you, consider that there is considerable evidence that more guns result in less crime. The logic to support this is not unreasonable. It is that criminals often make rational decisions based on their understanding of the environment that they are in. If they believe that their intended victim may be armed, they will often chose another target, decide not to commit the crime, or decide to commit a non-confrontational crime such as theft from an unoccupied vehicle.

When criminals notice that a gun show is being held in an area, and people can more easily buy and sell guns, it is reasonable to believe that they would understand that potential victims could be armed. This belief would then result in less homicides.

The important thing about this study is that it shows a statistically significant drop in homicides while there is no statistical difference in suicides.

The statistical significance shows that this is not a random artifact of the data gathering process, but is a real effect.

The study shows that requiring universal background checks, in Texas alone, would cost 16 lives per year.

Dean Weingarten

Link to Paper:Gunshows-sept08-final.pdf

I have been told the above link is to a draft. Here is a link to the final paper.

The Effect of Gun Shows on Gun-Related Deaths:Evidence from California and Texas

Background Checks a Failed Paradigm: Prohibited Possession Works

The failed paradigm that has been followed for 44 years in the United States has been to attempt, unsuccessfully, to prevent crime by not allowing prohibited groups from buying firearms. Obviously, this approach has not worked. It is a failed paradigm because its focus is on the 99 percent of people who do not need to be controlled, instead of the 1 percent who do. The 1 percent can always find a way to obtain firearms illegally. The Supreme court has ruled that in the United States, you have a right to a loaded, unlocked handgun that is in common usage. This means that those who want illegal guns will always have a supply of them from the legal stock.

If that is not enough, the technology of guns is well developed and easily replicated in home workshops. The emerging 3-D printer technology has already produced legal semi-auto weapons and 30 round magazines. No background check can stop prohibited people from obtaining firearms with this technology. Those who do not trust politicians' promises claim that stopping criminals and madmen from obtaining firearms was never the intent of these laws. Instead they serve as a means of moving toward a national database of legal firearms preparatory to piecemeal confiscation over generations, as happened in England.

What has worked to decrease the number of murders, what has a proven track record, is focusing on prohibiting the possession of guns by dangerous individuals, instead of their acquisition of guns.

Focusing on the acquisition of guns creates the necessity of a huge, expensive and ineffective bureaucratic system aimed at the 99 percent of the population that does not commit violent crimes. It assumes that everyone is a criminal who has to prove that they are not a criminal in order to acquire a gun. What works is to focus on the small number of people who have shown that they cannot be trusted with a gun, and to make sure that they do not have a gun.

This system actually works. It worked in Operation Ceasefire in Boston in 1996. It has worked in Minneapolis, Salinas (California) and in Indianapolis. It is backed by pony tailed liberals and the NRA.

As detailed in David M. Kennedy’s work, and long known by police officers everywhere, the vast majority of murderous violence is conducted by a very small number of individuals. Those individuals are known in their communities and by the police. The number of murders can be tremendously reduced by focusing on those individuals and making sure that they are disarmed, put in jail, or dissuaded from their criminal careers and placed into situations where they can get treatment or an alternate to their criminal associations and habits.

We have limited resources. We are currently putting enormous resources into scrutinizing the vast majority of people who do not pose a problem. It is a failed paradigm. It does not work. It creates a deep and not unfounded suspicion that the real purpose is the ultimate destruction of the gun culture and the right to keep and bear arms in America.

We should stop this approach and instead focus on the small number of people who are truly dangerous. Those people should be closely monitored and either put in jail or given treatment. The resources needed to do this would be a small fraction of what is being devoted to the failed paradigm of background checks.

Dean Weingarten

Background Check False Positive Analysis Link

Supreme court on unlocked, loaded handguns Link

3-D printed 30 round magazines Link

Operation Ceasefire Link

Project Exile NRA-ILA Link

David M. Kennedy Link

New Record:4,200 Coloradans tried to buy guns the day after Newtown, Connecticut school shooting

DENVER - Colorado set a single-day record for gun background check requests the day after the Connecticut mass shootings.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Susan Medina said there were more than 4,200 requests to buy guns in Colorado on Saturday. Those gun-purchase requests surpassed the previous record -- 4,028 background checks processed on Black Friday this year.

The latest surge in gun-purchase applications came after a gunman on Friday killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

more here