apocryph.org Notes to my future self

The bullshit 'gun show loophole'

Our illustrious governor, Tim Kaine, and the anti-gun retired police chief who led the foregone-conclusion Virginia Tech panel, have agreed that Virginia needs to close the ‘gun-show loophole’, which is anti-gun doublespeak for current Federal firearms law as established by the Gun Control Act of ’68, which failed to forbid private citizens to trade and sell their own property without any oversight on the part of the Federal government.

This is called the ‘gun show loophole’ presumably for PR reasons. The image you’re supposed to form in your head is a warehouse full of neo-nazis, rednecks, drunken hunters, criminals, terrorists, and Christianist theocrats exchanging guns and money in a big martial lovefest. Al-Qaeda has a booth offering two-for-one .50 cal sniper rifles, which as anyone who watches CNN knows can shoot down a commercial airliner from space. The KKK is running a clearance on ‘military-style assault rifles’, which is the MSM term for ‘semi-automatic rifles’. Even Wal-Mart has a table, selling ‘sniper rifles’ (read: ‘hunting rifles’) and ‘tactical assault gear’ (read: slings and holsters) to little kids and gang members.

As is often the case with anti-gun lobbyist rhetoric and the MSM reports which dutifully parrot it, the reality is much different.

First, the private exchange of private property (including arms) has nothing to do with gun shows. If my friend in my home state has some property he wants to get rid of, and I have some cash I want to get rid of, we can trade. Whether the property is a handgun, a rifle, a sofa, or a car, it doesn’t matter. This is a pretty fundamental principle of property rights. So it’s not so much the ‘gun show loophole’ as it is the ‘property rights loophole’ or the ‘freedom loophole’.

Second, most guns used in crimes do not come from lawful transactions between private individuals. To use the recent mass shootings as an example, the VT shooter and the Colorado church shooter both bought their guns from federally licensed dealers after passing government background checks. The Omaha shooter stole the rifle he used. Private firearms sales, in a gunshow or otherwise, had nothing to do with it, and stripping law-abiding citizens of their property rights would not have changed the outcome.

Third, every criminal use of a firearm is already illegal. Felons possessing firearms is another felony. Possessing a firearm when committing a felony is another felony. Straw purchases in which an accomplice with a clean record buys a gun from a dealer with the intention of giving it to a partner with a record is a felony. Hell, trading a gun for drugs is another felony. Then again, murdering people is also a felony. Adding another felony to the list won’t make any difference for the criminals, and will strip law-abiding citizens of the fundamental right to control of one’s own private property.

Fourth, we’re told the International Association of Chiefs of Police and a number of Chiefs of Police support requiring background checks on all gun purchases. That’s not surprising. What is surprising is that the opinions of police officers in their official capacity are thought to add weight to the argument. Lifting fourth amendment rights would no doubt allow more criminals to be caught and prosecuted. Eliminating first amendment rights to speech would allow police to arrest criminals before they hurt anyone, while they’re still just boasting. Without the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination, or the right to counsel, or the right to remain silent, just think of all the crime we could stop. If a few police organizations supported any of those freedom ‘reforms’, would you then conclude they were a good idea?

I don’t fault police for wanting policies that make their jobs easier and/or more effective, but that doesn’t mean police associations’ or officials’ support for restrictions on individual liberties makes the issue any more clear-cut, particularly when the liberties being restricted don’t have a significant demonstrable link to major criminal behavior.

Finally, the gun ban lobbyists and the media organs that consistently repeat their talking points often say things like “half of gun show vendors aren’t licensed firearms dealers” or more recently, “a third of firearms sellers aren’t licensed”, but this is a willful misrepresentation of the facts.

As anyone who has been to a gun show is aware, many (in fact, more than a few attendees would say ‘too many’) vendors aren’t selling guns, so of course they don’t have a license to deal in firearms. They sell food, toys, jewelry, shooting accessories, or old military relics. These vendors are a part of every gun show, presumably because their target market tends to come to gun shows, but they have nothing to do with the market in guns.

The latest distortion is to report the proportion of sellers of firearms who are not licensed, rather than the proportion of firearms sold by a seller who is not licensed. In this convenient fiction, the guy who wanders the show floor with a rifle on his shoulder and a ‘for sale’ sign stuck in the barrel counts as a ‘seller’ if someone buys his rifle. The dealer with a huge booth and hundreds of guns counts as a ‘seller’. If these were the only two sellers, 50% of all firearms sellers are unlicensed. But wait! How many guns did the dealer sell over the course of the weekend? Dozens? Hundreds? What proportion of the total number of guns sold were sold by private citizens without a federal firearms license? More like 1% or 2%.

The Roanoke Times printed a poorly-reasoned editorial in support of the closure of this ‘loophole’. The reasoning goes that, while Cho didn’t buy his guns from a gun show, had he been denied guns by a dealer due to his history of mental illness, he could have gone to a gun show and bought a gun from an ‘unlicensed dealer’ (that is to say, private citizen; a dealer in firearms without a license would also be called a ‘felon’, a slander that seems harsh even coming from the Roanoke Times).

The Hampton Roads Pilot paper has another editorial, which goes further afield of coherent argument. Here’s an excerpt:

Virginia has tough penalties for those convicted of illegal possession of a weapon. Violent felons spend at least five years in prison if they’re caught with a gun.

It seems incongruous to punish people for doing something the law allows. In Virginia, anyone, criminals included, can buy a gun without undergoing a criminal background check if they buy from a hobbyist, not a licensed dealer.

and then:

The law allows domestic abusers, drug addicts and people found to be mentally ill to bypass licensed gun dealers, who are required under federal law to do instant background checks on buyers for a small fee.

I think this may provide a glimpse into the impedance mismatch between those who think there’s a loophole and those who don’t. The author thinks the law allows felons, domestic abusers, drug addicts, and the mentally ill to buy guns at gunshows. And yet, both Federal and State law expressly forbid possession of guns by any of the above groups, at a gun show, shooting range, or under a bed. So where’s the disconnect?

Apparently the author does not distinguish between a law that fails to proactively prevent crimes by restricting the liberties of everyone, and the absence of a law. By this reasoning, the law ‘allows’ speeding, drug dealing, drunk driving, prostitution, and trafficking in child pornography, because there’s no law that actively prevents a criminal from committing any of these crimes ex ante.

Surprising as it may be to the author of the editorial, laws are not meant to create physical and bureaucratic barriers to the commission of crimes, particularly when such barriers have a disparate impact on lawful citizens as well. Laws are meant to establish actions which society has found to be unacceptable, and set forth punishments for those who commit those actions. That someone can commit an illegal act and not be caught is not the same as being ‘allowed’ to commit the act. Given the author’s attitude towards the proper role of the law as it relates to criminal behavior, what sort of totalitarian abridgment of rights would not pass muster?

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This past November Democrats took control of both houses of Virginia’s General Assembly. The party leadership is gunning (no pun intended) for this ‘gun show loophole’ closure bill. However, many Democrats represent rural districts which will not take kindly to further government meddling with their private property. Furthermore, the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League (VCDL), of which I am a member, will raise all kinds of hell over this issue when it comes to a vote. I don’t know what chances the bill actually has, but either way it will be a helluva fight.

Don’t be duped by lobbyists and flimsy emotional rhetoric. Do your own research. Go to a gun show if you don’t believe me. It’s only $10 to get in the door, and a toy or two might follow you home. But don’t blindly support the loss of fundamental property rights by government fiat. If you think it will stop with guns you haven’t been paying attention.