Study: “Universal” background checks not likely to reduce gun crime; Reps. Heard & Patmon push UBC bills in Ohio anyways

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

Using 20-year-old data, President Obama recently claimed that as many as 40 percent of gun purchases take place without a background check (Remarks by the President, March 28, 2013). He suggested that requiring background checks for all gun purchases will reduce gun violence by keeping dangerous people from acquiring firearms.

To determine if the 40 percent estimate is accurate today, Think22three, a Lebanon, OH- based gun, crime and public policy research organization, surveyed more than 300 individuals actively involved in the firearms market to determine where they purchased their two most recent firearms and whether or not a background check was conducted. The result? Most firearms are purchased from licensed dealers who conduct background checks. A much smaller percentage of firearms are purchased privately without a background check. This is particularly important when considering the types of firearms typically involved in crime.

“Policy makers aren’t looking at current data,” states Jeff Monroe, Ph.D. and president of Think22three.

When asked about their most recent two firearms purchases, 89.7 percent of gun-owning survey respondents stated that they purchased their firearms from a dealer that conducted a background check.

“Separating the data by the type of firearm purchased clarifies firearms purchases further. Shotguns, for example, are far less likely than revolvers, pistols and rifles to be purchased from a dealer conducting a background check,” states Monroe. They are also less likely to be used in a crime.

According to Monroe, nearly 26 percent of shotguns are acquired from family members, friends or private sellers a type of sale not currently subject to background checks.

“When we look at purchases of semi-automatic pistols, a type of firearm used more often than a shotgun to commit a crime, we know that nearly 93 percent of respondents who purchased pistols used a background check,” says Monroe. “This is consistent with prior research that shows that background checks do not decrease gun violence.”

Jeff Monroe points out that, as a policy matter, it is interesting that shotguns are the most likely to be purchased without a background check and the least likely type of firearm to be used in a crime.

Monroe states that “there is no evidence that requiring background checks for all gun purchases will reduce gun violence.” A universal background check system may make it more difficult for potential offenders to acquire firearms because they would no longer be able to purchase from gun owners that wish to remain law-abiding. “There is every reason to believe” Monroe says, “if background checks are required on the secondary market, motivated offenders will find a tertiary market ready and able to supply them with their wares.”

Senate may vote today to end private sales at gun shows and online; Sen. Portman “undecided” if he’ll join filibuster

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[UPDATE: Sen. Rob Portman joins 31 Senators voting against moving the bill to the floor. Filibuster attempts proved unsuccessful, however, as 16 other Republicans including John McCain voted with the anti-gun rights majority. Portman said he hasn’t seen the specific language of the Toomey-Manchin amendment described below, and thus could not yet say whether or not he could support it.

by Chad D. Baus

Last week, Sen. Rob Portman released an op-ed ensuring gun owners that he could be counted on to oppose efforts to pass a “universal” background check (UBC) gun registration scheme, and for that we expressed our thanks. The announcement of a “compromise” deal in the Senate this week by Sens. Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin, seems to indicate that the UBC gun registration scheme may be dead, at least for now.

However, being offered in it’s place under the name of “compromise” is yet another long-held goal of Sen. Chuck Schumer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the rest of the gun ban lobby – a ban on private sales of firearms at gun shows and via the Internet.

That’s right – despite the fact that there is no indication that private sales at gun shows or online had anything to do with the horrific attack at Sandy Hook, and despite the fact that studies have repeatedly shown that criminals do not obtain their guns at gun shows, politicians in Washington, so anxious to “do something,” are trying to convince the American public that this is an appropriate response to these types of mass killings.

Gun ban groups like Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns like to claim that “a loophole in the law enables criminals to avoid these checks if they buy from gun-sellers who don’t have licenses. Often operating at gun shows, these unlicensed sellers give criminals the opportunity to sidestep the background check system and easily purchase guns.”

But under current federal law, it is already illegal to “engage in the business” of “dealing in firearms” without a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. “Engaged in the business” means buying and selling firearms as a regular business with the objective of profit. Violations carry a five year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. It is also unlawful in Ohio to recklessly sell, lend, give, or furnish any firearm to any person who may not possess a firearm.

The truth is, the goal behind the effort to ban private sales at gun shows isn’t to solve a crime problem. Rather, these extremists want to end gun shows forever, because they know gun shows are as much a place for like-minded people to gather and exchange information as they are to exchange guns.

State FOP proposes stripping ability of boards of education to arm school employees

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

by Chad D. Baus

If there was any doubt left for Ohioans that the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is an anti-gun rights, anti-Second Amendment organization that cares more about protecting the jobs of its members than it does the very safety of our school children, it should be removed after they hear news that the FOP is pushing to strip the right of Boards of Education to arm staff to protect students.

From Gongwer News Service, in an article about House Bill 8, a place-holder bill that will eventually be amended to contain language intended to enhance school safety in the wake of the latest mass murder in a “no-guns” zone:

Mike Weinman, director of government affairs for the FOP of Ohio, said he is concerned the aim of the bill is to further arm teachers and school staff.

“That’s one thing that we feel should be left up to school resource officers or those police officers trained able to confront an armed individual,” he said. “It’s really a safety issue. Even some of the most experienced, best-trained officers don’t hit the target under stress as often as they should, so you can just image what would happen in a school setting with inexperienced, undertrained teachers or janitors or whoever.”

The FOP also wants the existing language that allows boards to “willy-nilly allow somebody to carry a gun” changed, adding he expects there could be liability issues for boards.

“When that was originally put into law, it was one of those unforeseen consequences of something that the firearms lobby was asking for because they were complaining about people going to pick up their kids,” he said. “They’re concealed carry permit holders and they can’t go pick up their kids because now they’re not authorized. So that was kind of like a compromise, I guess.

“Now it’s being used to arm teachers and janitors and lunch ladies…. If you’re going to work security in school, you have to meet certain criteria, but if you’re just armed in a school you don’t have to.”

[UPDATE: Weinman is just plain wrong about the genesis of allowing armed teachers into school. This section of law was not added in response to the firearms lobby to help people who wanted to pick up/drop off kids at school. That problem was addressed in SB184, Ohio’s Castle Doctrine law. The language addressing giving boards of education the ability to authorize concealed carry in the school was in the original concealed carry law (HB12, passed in 2004), when CHLs were still forbidden from picking up or dropping off kids. In fact, the whole Ohio school safety zone law didn’t exist until HB12, and that provision of HB12 was written by anti-gun forces in the Senate (among them the FOP).]

The facts about these school and church massacres are simple. FOP members don’t make it to the scene until the shooting is done. That’s because, according to extensive research by law enforcement consultant-trainer Ron Borsch, on average, it takes six minutes for officers to respond, and the average mass killing lasts…you guessed it – six minutes. Many boards of education want to reduce that the killing time on what Borsch calls the “Stop Watch of Death,” so that a trained, armed staffer can respond and stop the killing while it still in progress.

But that doesn’t seem to matter to Mike Weinman, who appears more concerned about preserving the helpless dependence of citizens on his officers than he does the safety of school children. Think that statement is over the top? Consider this:

OGCA makes significant donation to Buckeye Firearms Foundation teacher training

Posted on by Buckeye Firearms Association

by Larry S. Moore

OGCA check presentation

OGCA check presentation – From left to right: Larry Moore, BFA;
Robert Ray Preston, OGCA First Vice President; Joe Eaton, BFA;
Fred L. Kolb, OGCA BoD; and Charles D. Rush, OGCA Second
Vice President

The momentum behind the Buckeye Firearms Foundation’s efforts to train our teachers to respond to school violence continues to grow. The program received a major boost when the Ohio Gun Collectors Association (OGCA) Board of Directors stepped up with a very significant contribution to the effort. But the organization wasn’t done yet. The OGCA Civil Rights Defense Fund, which is a separate 501(c)3 entity, Board of Directors also approved another contribution to the Armed Teacher Training Program. The OGCA Civil Rights Defense Fund was established in 1995 to fill a niche within Ohio for the education and defense of firearms rights.

Buckeye Firearms Association leaders Larry Moore and Joe Eaton attended the recent OGCA meeting and show to receive the checks. Meeting with the various OGCA Board Members was an absolutely wonderful conversation about the importance of taking bold steps in these times to protect our children. We know that no gun signs and other current methods are not working to protect our most precious ones. While law makers threaten to reduce our rights to the whims of favors from politicians and the President calls for action while emotions are high, the OGCA Directors applauded and encouraged the steps Buckeye Firearms Foundation is taking to address the real world problems we face. The OGCA expressed how thankful they are for the training and what the Foundation is doing.

Everyone at Buckeye Firearms Foundation and Buckeye Firearms Association are very grateful, excited and humbled by the donation from the OGCA. It is exciting to note that so many are overwhelmingly supportive of the efforts to train teachers to respond to active shooter threats. When this support is coupled with the over 1400 school personnel statewide who have responded to be part of the program, we know that we have hit on the right track. Of course we knew a nerve was hit on that fateful night when Buckeye Firearms Association legal chair Ken Hanson made the announcement in Columbus during a Town Hall meeting and anti-gun activist Toby Hoover gasped for air!

Op-Ed: Race and the Gun Debate

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The No. 1 cause of death for African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34: being murdered with a gun.

by Juan Williams

This week much of the talk about gun control concerns New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $12 million ad campaign to put pressure on senators in key states to support legislation that he backs. Or the talk is about the National Rifle Association’s pushback against the Bloomberg campaign. Then there was last week’s mini-tempest over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision not to include Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s assault-weapon ban in a comprehensive gun-control bill the Senate will take up next month.

One thing you don’t hear much about in the discussions of guns: race. That is an astonishing omission, because race ought to be an inescapable part of the debate. Gun-related violence and murders are concentrated among blacks and Latinos in big cities. Murders with guns are the No. 1 cause of death for African-American men between the ages of 15 and 34. But talking about race in the context of guns would also mean taking on a subject that can’t be addressed by passing a law: the family-breakdown issues that lead too many minority children to find social status and power in guns.

The statistics are staggering. In 2009, for example, the Centers for Disease Control reported that 54% of all murders committed, overwhelmingly with guns, are murders of black people. Black people are about 13% of the population.

The Justice Department reports that between 1980 and 2008, “blacks were six times more likely than whites to be homicide victims and seven times more likely than whites to commit homicide.”

The dire implications of these numbers is evident in a Children’s Defense Fund report that included a chilling historical perspective: The 44,038 black children killed by guns since 1979 (when national data on the age of gun violence victims was first collected) is “nearly 13 times more” than all the black people killed by lynching in the 86-year period of 1882 to 1968.

…I support gun control. But speaking honestly about the combustible mix of race and guns may be more important to stopping the slaughter in minority communities than any new gun-control laws.

Click here to read the entire article in The Wall Street Journal.

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