One of the biggest myths is that, if our friendly Federal Government had control of all transactions, we’d all be safe from guns.
The reasoning goes that, since criminals obtain the majority of their guns through illegal and surreptitious connections, life should be made harder on those who sell guns legitimately.
Go ahead and read that again.
To this end, they devised the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System–yeah the acronym doesn’t line up). The idea is that we can stop criminals from getting guns by monitoring the transactions of law-abiding sellers. The NICS system requires that Federal Form 4473 be completed and signed off by both the buyer and seller. The 4473 works like a sworn affidavit from the buyer that they are not disqualified by law from procuring a firearm. The seller records the details of the item sold (make, model, serial number) and signs off on a statement swearing that he has verified the buyer’s identity and called a background check into the NICS service.
Sure, the system has caught a few fugitives, albeit pretty dumb ones. On the other hand, it’s kept many law-abiding citizens from owning guns. See, you don’t have to outlaw them to discourage ownership; you simply have to make it very difficult. This is the same track that England and Australia have taken. Sure, they can honestly say they don’t ban guns, they just make it so hard to get them that most people aren’t willing to swim that hard upstream.
So, what happens to the Form 4473 you filled out? Well, the seller has to keep that on file for the rest of his life. According to the terms of his Federal Firearms License (FFL), he can be sent to Federal prison for misplacing a single form.
So far, the folks in charge of NICS claim that the information obtained during the call is destroyed after the proceed/delay/deny result has been given. That’s what they claim. Ever since 2001, politicians have been trying to set up the NICS system to save that information and make it act as a defacto registry of gun owners. Given that we’re not allowed to know what kind of surveillance we’re under, it could already have been implemented, and it could be running as we speak.
Theoretically, the 4473 the dealer keeps is supposed to be the only record of the sale. If my fears above are unfounded, then we have the only real benefit of registration, without the onus of an actual registry. Here’s how it’s supposed to work:
- a gun used in a crime is recovered,
- the authorities go to the manufacturer with the serial number and model,
- the manufacturer tells the authorities what dealer the gun was sold to,
- the authorities can then request the 4473 for that gun.
As such, guns used nefariously can be tracked back to the owner, but nowhere is there a searchable database under which Sheriff Bob can sit down and say, “let’s see what firearms Mr. Hamshed owns.”
I’m fairly certain this isn’t what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Fact is, it really doesn’t work–all it does is create further levels of bureaucracy.
The above shows just where criminals get their guns. All but 21% of the sources are all but uncontrollable and are outside the scope of the current apparatus.
Pawnshops (who are subject to the same licensing) and dealers account for 19% of the total. So, given what you’ve read so far regarding the hurdles of the NICS system, how do criminals get guns? The answer is known as a Straw Purchase.
Anyone who ever got their buddy’s older brother to buy beer for them in high school knows how this works: a straw purchase involves a person who is qualified buying for someone who isn’t. In the case of firearms, it’s a felony, and it’ll get you a (quite justified) 5-year prison sentence.
There have been many campaigns to raise awareness, both among retailers and the buying public. Retailers can be prosecuted for knowingly allowing one to take place, and they take great pains not to let such transactions happen. They still happen, though, despite everyone’s intentions to the contrary. The plain fact is, you can scrutinize the person you’re selling to as hard as you want, but if they check out, and they haven’t given any indication as to their intentions, there’s no way to tell.
Oh, and that 2% on the graph labelled “gun show?” Those are what the Brady Group (the sponsors of the NICS initiative) refers to as “Arms Bazaars for Terrorists and Criminals.” They also claim that their system has stopped over one million illegal purchases since its inception. Right.
The claim is that anybody can buy all the guns they want at a gun show without having to go through a background check. This is patently false (and they know it). Federal law requires any “retail” transfer, from a storefront OR a gun show table to follow regulations. What the Brady Group are counting are the folks selling non-firearm merchandise at gun shows, stuff like military souvenirs and antique replicas.
(Although the law does allow private, unregulated person-to-person transfers on an individual basis, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone with an ounce of instinct towards self-preservation who’d sell to a stranger that way. The gun is matched to the original purchaser by the original 4473. If I sell one of my guns to someone else, I need to be sure they’re not going to do something stupid or malicious, because it’ll come back to me as the original owner, and I’ll have some real explaining to do if it ends up on the wrong side of the law. Sure, I’d sell a gun to a trusted friend or family member, but that’s it.)
The real sources of criminals’ guns are not and cannot be controlled. No amount of legislation can affect these sources, and inflicting regulatory suffering upon legitimate buyers and sellers only makes things harder for those who choose to obey the law.
Oh, and the downward spiral of violent firearms violence we’re experiencing? It doesn’t exist.
