Fact Checker: Are gun-background-check claims true?

[beevul]

Fact Checker: Are gun-background-check claims true?

Mark Robison, RGJ 11:06 a.m. PDT September 15, 2014

The claims

• About 40 percent of gun transfers in the U.S. take place without going through a licensed dealer.

• In 2012, millions of guns were sold with no background check.

• In states with background checks required for all unlicensed handgun sales, 38 percent fewer women are shot to death by their partners and 39 percent fewer law enforcement personnel are shot to death with handguns.

The background

Last month, a group launched a signature drive for the "Background Check Initiative." It would allow Nevada voters on the 2016 ballot to decide whether all gun sales should require background checks.


*snip*

The other author of the study — Jens Ludwig at the University of Chicago — was asked by the Washington Post last year to re-examine the survey's data.

He found, the Post reported, that "gun purchases without background checks amounted to 14 to 22 percent" of total sales.

http://www.rgj.com/story/news/2014/09/13/fact-checker-gun-background-check-claims-true/15153955/

It examines some very common talking points that originate in the anti-gun/pro-lots-more-control camp, and it may make some heads explode.

Enjoy.

[Eleanors38]

1. My prediction: MSM will continue to cite Bloomberg

as it is institutionally predisposed to favor gun-control/prohibition. This action will be re-enforced because it comes from Bloomberg, a prime representative of our corporate state.

[DonP]

2. Anything that doesn't fit the control narrative = NRA Talking Points

Even the FBI UCR numbers have been cited as "irrelevant" when they contradict the narrative.

Interesting and relatively neutral deconstruction of the "Mayors Against Guns/Everytown for Gun Safety/Moms Demand Action/Another New Name TBD, et. al." talking points.

[virginia mountainman]

3. Gun Control has a distinct dogma...

And it is faith based... And if it disagrees with the dogma, it is ignored, and ridiculed, facts do not matter.

[jimmy the one]

4. more guns more violence, but I already knew

beevul: It examines some very common talking points that originate in the anti-gun/pro-lots-more-control camp, and it may make some heads explode. Enjoy

I especially 'enjoyed' these:

A lot of ideas are being floated about policy actions that could lessen the chance of another Sandy Hook massacre — increased mental health services, armed guards at schools, restrictions on ammunition, an assault weapons ban, better background checks and databases, etc.
But when people say it’s obvious that more civilians carrying guns is the solution, the evidence is simply not there.

The Harvard Injury Control Research Center reviewed the research and found that places with more guns have more violence. It found this was true literally everywhere. In homes with more guns, there are more homicides; in cities with more guns, there are more homicides; and the same is true of states and countries.
One passage: “After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.”
This is called correlation, not causation. Correlation just means that when you find one thing, you tend to find the other, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that one caused the other

So author concurs there is a correlation, bravo factchecker.