By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Recent headlines have duly noted the Biden Justice Department recently announced a new rule to require everyone defined as being “engaged in the business” of firearms sales must have a license and conduct background checks, ostensibly to close the so-called “gun show loophole.”
However, according to various research by the DOJ’s own Bureau of Justice Statistics, this long-criticized avenue by which criminals are supposedly getting their hands on firearms really doesn’t exist. It is, statistically anyway, a myth.
As noted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in various reports over the years, based on surveys of prison inmates who possessed a gun while committing a crime, “fewer than 1% had obtained the firearm at a gun show (0.8%).”
Britannica ProCon.org recently reported the new rule could affect some 23,000 so-called “unlicensed dealers” who apparently attend gun shows to buy, sell or trade firearms. Allegedly, these people are out to make some profit from their activities.
ProCon quoted U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) observing, “For years, the Biden administration has cracked down on law-abiding gun dealers to advance its gun-grabbing agenda, even preventing small businesses from making a living. Rather than helping dealers comply with the law, Biden’s ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives] has created more hurdles to legally sell guns, so it can turn around and revoke licenses for inconsequential, so-called ‘violations.’ While Joe Biden’s ATF has avoided critical oversight on its FFL [federal firearms license] abuse for over a year, I am proud to stand up for law-abiding Iowa gun dealers.”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has weighed in on the subject, noting on its website, “Fact: According to a January 2019 U.S. Department of Justice survey of prison inmates, less than one percent (0.8) of criminals that possessed a firearm during their current offense acquired their guns from gun shows. By contrast, nearly 50 percent reported acquiring their guns illegally, such as by theft or on the black market.”
So, where do criminals get their guns?
The BJS estimated in its study that 287,400 prisoners had a gun while committing a crime. Among these prisoners:
- 90 percent did not obtain their gun from a retail source
- 99 percent did not obtain their gun from a gun show
- 43 percent obtained it “off the street” or from the so-called “underground market”
- 7 percent found it at the scene of a crime
- 6 percent stole it
- 0.8 percent obtained it at a gun show
This Biden administration effort to discourage people from participating at gun shows by blaming such shows for being the sources of crime-related guns—the so-called “arms bazaars for criminals” as they were portrayed in the past—seems akin to efforts by the gun prohibition lobby to ban so-called “assault rifles” even though FBI crime data has always shown rifles of any kind are used in a fraction of homicides in any given year. The figure has hovered around 2-4 percent for several years.
This new rule is scheduled to take effect on May 19, which is 30 days after it was published in the Federal Register.
