Proposals for universal background checks would require almost all firearms transactions in the United States to be recorded and go through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), closing what is sometimes called the private sale exemption. Universal background checks are not required by U.S. federal law, but at least 21 states and the District of Columbia currently require background checks for at least some private sales of firearms.
Federal law requires background checks (through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System) only for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers, which account for 78% of all gun sales in the United States. This figure was published in a 2017 study by the Annals of Internal Medicine which, using a 2015 survey, found that 22% of recent gun transfers (purchased and nonpurchased) were completed without a background check. [1] The authors noted that while this number was less than in years past, it nonetheless indicates that millions of American adults are able to obtain firearms without background checks. [1] The current federal law allows people not "engaged in the business" of selling firearms to sell firearms without a license or records. A 2008 report from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) stated that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System had prevented over 1.4 million felons and other prohibited persons from purchasing firearms in the years between 1994-2005. [2] According to the CSGV, the law also has a prohibitive effect, that deters illegal purchases.
In November 1998, President Bill Clinton directed the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Attorney General (A.G.) to provide recommendations concerning the fact that 25 percent or more of sellers at gun shows are not required to run background checks on potential buyers. This was called the gun show loophole. [3] : 3, 12 [4] [5] : 27 Two months later, Gun Shows: Brady Checks and Crime Gun Traces was released. [3] The Secretary and the A.G. made seven recommendations, including expanding the definition of "gun show," and reviewing the definition of "engaged in the business".
After the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999, gun shows and background checks became a focus of national debate. [6] [7] [8] In May, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, "We think it is reasonable to provide mandatory, instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show." [9] : 118 Those concerned about the shows believed they were a source of illegally trafficked firearms. [10] [nb 1] Efforts to reverse a key feature of the Firearm Owners Protection Act (FOPA) by requiring criminal background checks and purchase records on private sales at gun shows, which had become prolific in the U.S. since the law's passage in 1986, were unsuccessful. [11] [12]
In the August 5, 2010, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine , researchers Garen J. Wintemute, Anthony A. Braga, and David M. Kennedy, wrote that gun shows account for only a fraction of all U.S. gun sales and that a more effective strategy would be to make all private-party gun sales go through the screening and record-keeping processes that FFL dealers are required to do. [13] Their report concluded:
Drawbacks with respect to expense and inconvenience notwithstanding, 83% of self-reported gun owners and 87% of the general population endorsed regulation for all private-party gun sales in a 2008 poll that was conducted for the advocacy organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Gun owners gave stronger support to this all-inclusive approach than to a gun-show-only proposal in a 2009 poll conducted for the same organization. Either proposal would face tough sledding on Capitol Hill. It would therefore seem preferable to move forward with the version that is most likely to reduce the rates of firearm-related violence. [13]
Following the December 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, there were numerous calls for universal background checks [14] [15] [16] to close what is now referred to as the "private sale loophole." [17] [18] [19] In an essay published in 2013, Wintemute said that comprehensive background checks that included private sales would result in a simple, fair framework for retail firearms commerce. [20] : 103 In February 2014, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research reported that after the 2007 repeal in Missouri of a long-standing law that required all handgun buyers to pass a background check there was a 23 percent increase in firearms homicides. [21]
A 2012 study published in the journal Injury Prevention found that nearly 80% of all firearms used for criminal purposes are obtained through transfers from unlicensed dealers, which are not required to conduct background checks in a majority of states due to the private sale exemption. [22] A 2016 survey of federal and state prison inmates by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that among prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense, 10.1% obtained the gun through a retail source (7.5% gun shop/store, 1.6% pawn shop, 0.8% gun show, and 0.4% from a plea market); 25.3% obtained the gun from an individual (family member, friend, or other, whether purchased, traded, borrowed, or received as a gift); 43.2% obtained the gun off the street or through the underground market (such as "markets for stolen goods, middlemen for stolen goods, criminals or criminal enterprises" or people involved in the illegal drug trade); 6.4% obtained the gun through theft; and 17.4% obtained the gun from another source. [23]
In 2017, a study by researchers from Northeastern University and the Harvard School of Public Health showed that 22% of American gun owners who had obtained a gun in the previous two years did not undergo a background check before doing so. [24]
Universal background checks enjoy high levels of public support; a 2016 representative survey found 86% of registered voters in the United States supported the measure. [25] Five national polls conducted in 2015 show high levels of support for "expanded background checks for gun purchases," with rates varying (93% and 89% support in two Quinnipiac University surveys, 92% support in a CBS/ New York Times survey, 86% support in a Gallup survey, 85% support in a Pew Research Center survey). [26] A 2015 survey found that more than 90% of Americans supported universal background checks, and that, on average, Americans thought they would be more effective than any other gun policy. [27] There is evidence that many Americans incorrectly think that universal background checks are required by federal law; a 2016 survey found that 41% of Americans believed this to be the case. The same survey found that 77% of Americans supported universal background checks, while only 53% supported stricter gun laws. Based on this data, the authors concluded that "this difference might be attributable to poor awareness of the limitations of existing laws." [28]
In 2015, large majorities of American adults, both Republicans (79%) and Democrats (88%), supported background checks for private sales and at gun shows, according to a Pew Research Center survey. [29] In 2017, strong majorities of American adults, both gun owners (77%) and non-gun owners (87%), supported background checks for private sales and at gun shows, according to a Pew Research Center survey with an error attributable to sampling of +/- 2.8% at the 95% level of confidence. [30] In 2018, after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, nearly all Americans supported universal background checks. [31] [32] 88% of registered voters supported universal background checks, according to a Politico /Morning Consult poll with a margin of error +/- 2%. [31] 94% of American voters supported universal background checks, according to a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll with a margin of error of +/- 3.4%. [32]
A July 2019 poll by NPR found that 89% of respondents supported background checks for all gun purchases at gun shows or other private sales. [33] An overwhelming majority of Republicans (84%) and Democrats (96%) indicated their support, suggesting there is bipartisan popular consensus on the broad topic in the public. [34]
Gun rights groups such as the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation oppose universal background check proposals. [35] [36] Opponents of universal background checks argue that existing gun laws are sufficient; that the government does not prosecute enough of the attempted ineligible buyers who are turned away by the current system; that background checks are an invasion of privacy; and that "transfer" might be defined too broadly. [37] Opponents also maintain that universal background checks would not stop crime [37] [38] and assert that the only way to properly enforce a universal system would be to require a registration database, which, if implemented by the federal government, is prohibited under 18 U.S.C. § 926(a) from the Firearm Owners Protection Act. [38] [39] [40] Gun-rights advocate and author John Lott argues that universal background checks prevent poorer Americans from acquiring guns. Lott said that, as of December 2015, background checks added an effective cost of $80 (New York), $60 (Washington state), or $200 (Washington, D.C.) to transferring a firearm. Lott argues that universal background checks are an effective tax on guns and can prevent less affluent Americans from purchasing them, and that this disproportionately affects poor minorities who live in high-crime urban areas. [41]
Some local counties have adopted Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in opposition to universal background check laws. [42] [43]
A Reason magazine article from March 2023 [44] cited a series of studies conducted out of the United Kingdom that stated: [45]
The evidence indicates that state laws requiring background checks for private sales [45] , which in practice means they must be completed through federally licensed dealers, are widely flouted by gun owners who object to the added expense and inconvenience. [44]
VPRP found that comprehensive background check policies led to increased background checks in Delaware, but not in Colorado or Washington. Non-compliance with the policy may explain the lack of an increase in the latter two states. [46] Universal background check laws were associated with a 14.9% reduction in overall homicides, according to a 2019 study by medical researchers including Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Health and David Hemenway of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health published by the Journal of General Internal Medicine . The study authors wrote that "further research is necessary to determine whether these associations are causal ones". [47]
An October 2018 study conducted by the Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) at UC Davis and the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found no change in firearm homicide or suicide rates in the ten years following California's 1991 implementation of comprehensive background checks. The study's control group used firearm and non-firearm mortality data for 32 states that did not implement major firearm policies during the period from 1981-2000. In the study period, firearm suicide rates were 10.9 percent lower in California but a similar decrease in non-firearm suicide was also observed. The study found no net difference between firearm-related homicide rates before and during the study period. The study authors identified a number of possible reasons for the null finding, including inadequate reporting of criminal records or other disqualifying information to background-check databases (especially pre-2000); a failure by sellers to conduct the background check as required by law; and the small number of persons affected by the California law. [48]
A study published in July 2018 found no association between firearm homicide and suicide rates and the repeal of comprehensive background check laws in two states. The study compared rates from synthetic control groups to rates in Indiana from 1981 to 2008 and in Tennessee from 1994 to 2008. Rates from the two states' study periods were within the range of natural variability. The study also concluded that in order to understand whether comprehensive background checks generally reduce firearm deaths, more evidence from other states is needed. [49]
A study published in June 2018 in the Journal of Urban Health by authors affiliated with the Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) at UC Davis and the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found comprehensive background check (CBC) laws not tied to a permit-to-purchase law were associated with an increase in firearm homicide rates but not non-firearm homicide rates. [50] The authors of the study noted, however, that they have "identified no plausible theory to explain how requiring a prospective firearm purchaser to undergo a background check would result in increased homicide rates." [50] In attempting to explain the unexpected results, the researchers proposed an endogenous relationship such that states passing the CBC-only laws were doing so in response to already rising firearm homicide rates. [50]
A 2016 study published in The Lancet attempted to measure the impact that 25 different state laws had on overall firearm-related mortality, and it found that universal background checks had the strongest overall impact. [51] Additionally, the researchers' projection of a federally implemented universal background check policy predicted that national firearm mortality could drop from 10.35 deaths per 100,000 people to 4.46 deaths per 100,000 people. [51] A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that a Connecticut law (enacted in 1995) requiring handgun buyers to undergo a background check (in order to obtain a required permit) "was associated with a 40 percent decline in gun homicides and a 15 percent drop in suicides" during the law's first ten years in effect. [52] A 2014 study published in the Journal of Urban Health found that the 2007 repeal of a "permit-to-purchase" handgun law in Missouri (including the repeal of a background-check requirement) was associated with a 23% increase in the firearm homicide rate and a 15% increase in the murder rate, translating "to increases of between 55 and 63 homicides per year in Missouri." [53] The study controlled for other variables that might affect homicides, including "changes in rates of unemployment, poverty, incarceration, burglary, law enforcement officers per capita, and the presence of four other types of state laws." [53] A 2013 study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine analyzed various types of firearm legislation across the U.S. from 2007-2010 and firearm-related deaths across all 50 states, and concluded that stronger background checks were associated with lower overall firearm fatality rates. [54]
In a survey published by the New York Times in January 2017, a panel of 32 scholars of criminology, public health, and law rated universal background checks as the most effective policy to prevent gun deaths, ranking it #1 of 29 possible gun-related policies (7.3 on a 10-point effectiveness scale). [55] In a subsequent expert survey published in October 2017 on policies to curb mass shooting deaths specifically, the expert panel ranked universal checks for gun buyers and universal checks for ammunition buyers as 6.6 and 6.5 (on a 10-point effectiveness scale), respectively, ranking them as the fifth- and sixth-most effective of 20 gun-policy proposals. [56]
A survey by Arthur Berg, Gary Mauser, and John Lott, published in the winter 2019-2020 edition of the Cato Institute quarterly Regulation , asked respondents (38 criminologists, 32 economists, and 50 public health researchers who had published an empirical study on firearms in a peer-reviewed journal) to rank the effects of 33 firearms policies (20 policies in the New York Times in 2017, plus 8 additional policies that would loosen gun regulation, and 5 additional restrictive policies) on reducing murder rates and mass shootings. (Berg, Mauser, and Lott asked about "murder rates" rather than gun homicides because they made the assumption that stricter gun laws would not affect the homicide rate.) Respondents ranked universal background checks 13th and 14th for reducing the murder rate and reducing mass shootings, respectively. Public health researchers were substantially likelier than economists and criminologists to rate universal background checks as effective. [57]
Universal background check laws, which require that a background check be conducted before any gun transfer, may apply to temporary removals of guns from the home of suicidal individuals. Some clinicians have reported that these laws have created confusion about whether a gun transfer would be legal, and therefore made it more difficult for them to counsel their patients. [58]
As of 2023, 20 states (21 states, Michigan's law will become effective in early 2024) and District of Columbia require background checks for at least some private sales of firearms; of these, 15 states and the District of Columbia require background checks for all gun sales. [59]
| Jurisdiction | Summary from Giffords Law Center [59] |
|---|---|
| California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, [60] Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia | "Generally require universal background checks at the point of sale for all sales of all classes of firearms, whether they are purchased from a licensed dealer or an unlicensed seller." [59] New Mexico and Virginia law includes an exemption for "transfers that are not made for a fee or other remuneration." [59] |
| Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon | "Require all firearm purchasers to obtain a permit, issued after a background check, in order to buy any firearm", in lieu of a point-of-sale background check. [59] |
| New Jersey and Oregon | "Requires firearm purchasers to both obtain a permit to purchase a firearm and, if the purchase is from an unlicensed seller, conduct the transaction through a federally-licensed firearms dealer." [59] |
| Minnesota and Nebraska | "Permit and background check requirement for handgun purchases but not long-gun purchases." [59] |
In Maine, a 2016 referendum to require background checks on private sales failed after a closely fought campaign, with "yes" gaining 48.2% of the vote and "no" gaining 52.8% of the vote. [61] [62] In 2014, a referendum in Washington state to require background checks on private sales (Initiative Measure No. 594) passed, [59] with "yes" gaining 59.3% of the vote and "no" gaining 40.7% of the vote. [63]
Gun control, or firearms regulation, is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, or use of firearms by civilians.
John Richard Lott Jr. is an American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate. Lott was formerly employed at various academic institutions and at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. He is the former president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, a nonprofit he founded in 2013. He worked in the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice under the Donald Trump administration from October 2020 to January 2021. Lott holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.
More Guns, Less Crime is a book by John R. Lott Jr. that says violent crime rates go down when states pass "shall issue" concealed carry laws. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county in the United States during 29 years from 1977 to 2005. Each edition of the book was refereed by the University of Chicago Press. As of 2019, the book is no longer published by the University of Chicago Press. The book examines city, county and state level data from the entire United States and measures the impact of 13 different types of gun control laws on crime rates. The book expands on an earlier study published in 1997 by Lott and his co-author David Mustard in The Journal of Legal Studies and by Lott and his co-author John Whitley in The Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001.
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, often referred to as the Brady Act or the Brady Bill, is an Act of the United States Congress that mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States. It also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases until the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was implemented in 1998. Introduced by U.S. representative Chuck Schumer of New York, the Brady Act was a landmark legislative enactment during the Clinton administration. The act was appended to the end of Section 922 of title 18, United States Code. The intention of the act was to prevent persons with previous serious convictions from purchasing firearms.
Gun politics is defined in the United States by two primary opposing ideologies concerning the private ownership of firearms. Those who advocate for gun control support increasingly restrictive regulation of gun ownership; those who advocate for gun rights oppose increased restriction, or support the liberalization of gun ownership. These groups typically disagree on the interpretation of the text, history and tradition of the laws and judicial opinions concerning gun ownership in the United States and the meaning of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. American gun politics involves these groups' further disagreement concerning the role of firearms in public safety, the studied effects of ownership of firearms on public health and safety, and the role of guns in national and state crime.
In the United States, a gun show is an event where promoters generally rent large public venues and then rent tables for display areas for dealers of guns and related items, and charge admission for buyers. The majority of guns for sale at gun shows are modern sporting firearms. Approximately 5,000 gun shows occur annually in the United States.
Gun show loophole is a political term in the United States referring to the sale of firearms by private sellers, including those done at gun shows, that do not require the seller to conduct a federal background check of the buyer. This is also called the private sale exemption. Under U.S. federal law, any person may sell a firearm to a federally unlicensed resident of the state where they reside, as long as they do not know or have reasonable cause to believe that the person is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms.
Gun violence is a term of political, economic and sociological interest referring to the tens of thousands of annual firearms-related deaths and injuries occurring in the United States. In 2022, up to 100 daily fatalities and hundreds of daily injuries were attributable to gun violence in the United States. In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics reported 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were suicides. The national rate of firearm deaths rose from 10.3 people for every 100,000 in 1999 to 11.9 people per 100,000 in 2018, equating to over 109 daily deaths. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the U.S. In 2010, 358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun; another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm.
Gun-related violence is violence committed with the use of a firearm. Gun-related violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, and suicide, or attempted suicide, depending on jurisdiction. Non-criminal violence includes accidental or unintentional injury and death. Also generally included in gun violence statistics are military or para-military activities.
In 2018, the Small Arms Survey reported that there are over one billion small arms distributed globally, of which 857 million are in civilian hands. The survey stated that American civilians account for an estimated 393 million of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms, or about 120.5 firearms for every 100 American residents.
The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, popularly known as the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, was a subsection of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a United States federal law which included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms that were defined as assault weapons as well as certain ammunition magazines that were defined as large capacity.
Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS) was a United States non-profit organization and super PAC that supports gun control. The group's stated goal was "to encourage elected officials to stand up for solutions to prevent gun violence and protect responsible gun ownership." It typically supported Democratic politicians in elections. In 2016, the organization merged with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence to become Giffords.
A high-capacity magazine ban is a law which bans or otherwise restricts detachable firearm magazines that can hold more than a certain number of rounds of ammunition. For example, in the United States, the now-expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 included limits regarding magazines that could hold more than ten rounds. As of 2022, twelve U.S. states, and a number of local governments, ban or regulate magazines that they have legally defined as high-capacity. The majority of states do not ban or regulate any magazines on the basis of capacity. States that do have large capacity magazine bans or restrictions typically do not apply to firearms with fixed magazines whose capacity would otherwise exceed the large capacity threshold.
Daniel W. Webster is an American health policy researcher and the distinguished research scholar of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is also the deputy director for research at the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, and the first Bloomberg Professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2016, he became the director of the Johns Hopkins-Baltimore Collaborative for Violence Reduction, a joint crime-fighting effort between Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore Police Department.
Maine Question 3, formally An Act to Require Background Checks for Gun Sales, was a citizen-initiated referendum question that appeared on the Maine November 8, 2016 statewide ballot. It sought to require a background check for virtually all gun transfers in Maine, with some exceptions. As the Maine Legislature and Governor Paul LePage declined to enact the proposal as written, it appeared on the ballot along with elections for President of the United States, Maine's two United States House seats, the Maine Legislature, other statewide ballot questions, and various local elections.
The Dickey Amendment is a provision first inserted as a rider into the 1997 omnibus spending bill of the United States federal government that mandated that "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control." In the same spending bill, Congress earmarked $2.6 million from the CDC's budget, the exact amount that had previously been allocated to the agency for firearms research the previous year, for traumatic brain injury-related research.
Public opinion on gun control in the United States has been tracked by numerous public opinion organizations and newspapers for more than 20 years. There have also been major gun policies that affected American opinion in the 1990s. Throughout these polling years, there are different gun control proposals that show promise for bipartisan action. Over the years listed there have been mass shootings, most notably school shootings, that have affected public opinion. There have also been a growth in states around the United States taking more drastic measures on gun control.
The boyfriend loophole is a gap in American gun legislation that allows physically abusive ex-romantic partners and stalkers with previous convictions or restraining orders to access guns. While individuals who have been convicted of, or are under a restraining order for, domestic violence are prohibited from owning a firearm, the prohibition only applies if the victim was the perpetrator's spouse or cohabitant, or if the perpetrator had a child with the victim.
The Bipartisan Background Checks Act is a proposed United States law that would establish new background check requirements for firearm transfers between private parties. It would prohibit a firearm transfer between private parties until a licensed gun dealer, manufacturer, or importer conducts a successful background check.
No loopholes anywhere for anyone.
These Internet sales really are the new gun shows.
Through something known as the private sale loophole, he could have purchased the firearm in the private market at a gun show or out of someone's trunk.
Eighty-eight percent support requiring background checks on all gun sales.
94 Percent Back Universal Gun Background Checks
The law requires universal background checks for all private gun sales by July 1, moving up the previous deadline of January 2024.
