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Old January 20, 2009, 12:41 PM   #37
Al Norris
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Join Date: June 29, 2000
Location: Rupert, Idaho
Posts: 9,660
From the latest GunFacts 5.0 (pages 19 & 20 of the pdf):

Myth: Gun shows are supermarkets for criminals

Fact: Only 0.7% of convicts bought their firearms at gun shows. 39.2% obtained them from illegal street dealers.(86)
Fact: Less than 1% of “crime guns” were obtained at gun shows(87). This is a reduction from a 1997 study that found 1.7% - 2% of guns used in criminal offenses were purchased at gun shows.(88)
Fact: The FBI concluded in one study that no firearms acquired at gun shows were used to kill cops. “In contrast to media myth, none of the firearms in the study were obtained from gun shows.”(89)
Fact: Only 5% of metropolitan police departments believe gun shows are a problem.(90)
Fact: Only 3.5% of youthful offenders reported that they obtained their last handgun at a gun show.(91)
Fact: 93% of guns used in crimes are obtained illegally (i.e., not at gun stores or gun shows).(92)
Fact: At most, 14% of all firearms traced in investigations were purchased at gun shows.(93) But this includes all firearms that the police traced, regardless of if they were used in crimes or not, which overstates the acquisition rate.
Fact: Gun dealers are federally licensed. They are bound to stringent rules for sales that apply equally whether they are dealing from a storefront or a gun show.(94)
Fact: Most crime guns are either bought off the street from illegal sources (39.2%) or through family members or friends (39.6%).(95)
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86 Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Firearm Use by Offenders”, February 2002
87 Ibid
88 National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. According to an NIJ study released in December 1997 "Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities"
89 U.S. Department of Justice, "Violent Encounters: A Study of Felonious Assaults on Our Nation's Law Enforcement Officers", August 2006
90 Center to Prevent Handgun Violence survey of 37 police departments in large cities, reported in a CPHV report titled “On the Front Line: Making Gun Interdiction Work”, February 1998
91 Timothy S. Bynum, Todd G. Beitzel, Tracy A. O’Connell & Sean P. Varano, “Patterns in Gun Acquisition and Use by Youthful Offenders in Michigan”, 1999
92 BATF, 1999
93 BATF, June 2000, covers only July 1996 through December 1998
94 BATF, 2000
95 “Firearm use by Offenders”, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2001

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Now you have some of the facts, by which to attack any such legislation, on its merits... or lack thereof.

Tennessee, the last couple of bills (which never made it out of committee) were stuffed with a bunch of crud. Like declaring any more than 3 gun owners to be a "gun show," if all they did was to meet and discuss guns (just as one example - there are many more equally appalling "rules").
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