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Gun Shows: Dangerous loophole or perfectly legit?
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Gun Shows: Dangerous loophole or perfectly legit?
Email story to a friend
(MOBILE, Ala.) May 13 - "I never thought it would be us who would bury a child," Catherine Gaddy admitted. "What would it be like if he was here?"
Some questions simply have no answers. In 1988, Catherine Gaddy's only son, Mike, was fatally shot by a man he had never met who used a gun belonging to someone else. Guns can end up in the wrong hands. Some lawmakers say the transfer is most likely to happen at gun shows. Felons can cash and carry if they find the right salesman. Just look for the "private sellers." They are not federally licensed to sell guns, which means they do not have to follow the basic requirements of the federal gun law. They do not have to run background checks.
"Bad guys would not come to me to buy a gun," acknowledged Tom Hand, a federally licensed firearm dealer who is legally required to conduct background checks at his Goldmine Pawn Shop in Daphne. His customer, Mike Cook says private sellers at gun shows should be held to a different standard. "These people are selling their private collection, just like you sell your car. Should you have to be an automobile dealer if you sell your used car? I mean it's ridiculous."
But what about those background checks? Just how reliable are they? And is Alabama's inefficiency helping criminals buy guns?
Stashed in the basement of Alabama's Supreme Court are computers which contain every arrest, conviction, acquittal, and dropped charge of each citizen. It's information teh F.B.I. relies on to complete background checks.
Mike and Tom oppose the McCain-Leiberman bill, which is aimed at shoring up the so-called gun show loophole. Critics says the bill is too broad because it heaps regulation on gun shows. Supporters say gun show promoters would merely have to make certain paperwork available to the government.
Michael Moore and Mike Carroll work in the information systems division for Alabama's Administrative Office of Courts, or AOC. Part of the AOC's job is ensuring that all of the arrests, convictions, acquittals, and dropped charges are incorporated into Alabama's criminal history record system.
Catherine Gaddy has her own reservations. "I don't think you can make enough laws to make people good."
Mobile Police Chief Sam Cochran favors tougher enforcement of existing laws. "We don't need to create more regulatory problems that become so insurmountable to interpret," Cochran maintained.
In the meantime, a 2000 ATF study showed that gun shows are one of the top three places criminals get guns.
AGS cites ATF and teh Justice Department in a reports spanning from December, 1998 to June, 2001. Nationally, 10,000 prohibited buyers bought guns because their convictions didn't appear in the state computer records. The stude blames Alabama as one of five states doing an especially poor job at updating records.
"The system does work," says Mike Carroll. "We've already kept hundreds of inappropriate people from buying guns."
A 1999 Justice Department study shows that in the last five yaers, on 65% of Alabama's arrests were complete and computerized, and available for F.B.I. background checks in the criminal history record.
But what percentage made it online? Remember that felons are prohibited gun buyers and in order to stop a gun sale, the felon must show up during a background check. As it turns out, there are no 1997 or 1999 figures. 1993 is the most recent stat available, when only 30% of Alabama's felony convictions were entered into the criminal history record.
Catherine Gaddy says that how the guns get from point A to point B becomes less important than when they are shot, point blank. "I think when he sees me hug a mother who has just lost a child, I think Mike just says sort of, 'Look at mama, she's hugging another one now.' I think he knows. But not all things. He doesn't know about all this. It wouldn't be heaven if he knew about things here."
The McCain-Leiberman gun show loophole bill could be debated as early as next week.
To read the text of the bill, log onto Americans for Gun Safety's webpage, http://www.ags.com. AGS bills itself as a non-partisan, not-for-profit advocacy group. The group is in favor of the McCain-Leiberman proposal. To read opinions from bill critics, go to http://www.nra.org.
To register your opinion with your United States Senator go to http://www.senate.gov/~sessions/ or www.senate.gov/~Shelby/
In Mississippi, go to http://www.lott.senate.gov or http://www.cochran.senate.gov
In Florida, go to http://www.graham.senate.gov or http://www.billnelson.senate.gov
What you didn't see on TV
According to a new report released by the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, states that fail to require criminal background checks at gun shows are flooding the nation with guns used in crimes. In states that require background checks at gun shows, 44 percent of guns traced to local crimes were originally sold in another state. In states that do not require background checks, only 24 percent of guns traced came from outside the state where the crime was committed. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi are among 32 states that failed to close the gun show loophole. The study also looked at whether requiring the background checks had an adverse affect on the gun shows. For full results of the study, visit the Americans for Gun Safety web site
http://wpmi.com/Global/story.asp?S=780614&nav=3w5L8zZ9
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Email story to a friend
(MOBILE, Ala.) May 13 - "I never thought it would be us who would bury a child," Catherine Gaddy admitted. "What would it be like if he was here?"
Some questions simply have no answers. In 1988, Catherine Gaddy's only son, Mike, was fatally shot by a man he had never met who used a gun belonging to someone else. Guns can end up in the wrong hands. Some lawmakers say the transfer is most likely to happen at gun shows. Felons can cash and carry if they find the right salesman. Just look for the "private sellers." They are not federally licensed to sell guns, which means they do not have to follow the basic requirements of the federal gun law. They do not have to run background checks.
"Bad guys would not come to me to buy a gun," acknowledged Tom Hand, a federally licensed firearm dealer who is legally required to conduct background checks at his Goldmine Pawn Shop in Daphne. His customer, Mike Cook says private sellers at gun shows should be held to a different standard. "These people are selling their private collection, just like you sell your car. Should you have to be an automobile dealer if you sell your used car? I mean it's ridiculous."
But what about those background checks? Just how reliable are they? And is Alabama's inefficiency helping criminals buy guns?
Stashed in the basement of Alabama's Supreme Court are computers which contain every arrest, conviction, acquittal, and dropped charge of each citizen. It's information teh F.B.I. relies on to complete background checks.
Mike and Tom oppose the McCain-Leiberman bill, which is aimed at shoring up the so-called gun show loophole. Critics says the bill is too broad because it heaps regulation on gun shows. Supporters say gun show promoters would merely have to make certain paperwork available to the government.
Michael Moore and Mike Carroll work in the information systems division for Alabama's Administrative Office of Courts, or AOC. Part of the AOC's job is ensuring that all of the arrests, convictions, acquittals, and dropped charges are incorporated into Alabama's criminal history record system.
Catherine Gaddy has her own reservations. "I don't think you can make enough laws to make people good."
Mobile Police Chief Sam Cochran favors tougher enforcement of existing laws. "We don't need to create more regulatory problems that become so insurmountable to interpret," Cochran maintained.
In the meantime, a 2000 ATF study showed that gun shows are one of the top three places criminals get guns.
AGS cites ATF and teh Justice Department in a reports spanning from December, 1998 to June, 2001. Nationally, 10,000 prohibited buyers bought guns because their convictions didn't appear in the state computer records. The stude blames Alabama as one of five states doing an especially poor job at updating records.
"The system does work," says Mike Carroll. "We've already kept hundreds of inappropriate people from buying guns."
A 1999 Justice Department study shows that in the last five yaers, on 65% of Alabama's arrests were complete and computerized, and available for F.B.I. background checks in the criminal history record.
But what percentage made it online? Remember that felons are prohibited gun buyers and in order to stop a gun sale, the felon must show up during a background check. As it turns out, there are no 1997 or 1999 figures. 1993 is the most recent stat available, when only 30% of Alabama's felony convictions were entered into the criminal history record.
Catherine Gaddy says that how the guns get from point A to point B becomes less important than when they are shot, point blank. "I think when he sees me hug a mother who has just lost a child, I think Mike just says sort of, 'Look at mama, she's hugging another one now.' I think he knows. But not all things. He doesn't know about all this. It wouldn't be heaven if he knew about things here."
The McCain-Leiberman gun show loophole bill could be debated as early as next week.
To read the text of the bill, log onto Americans for Gun Safety's webpage, http://www.ags.com. AGS bills itself as a non-partisan, not-for-profit advocacy group. The group is in favor of the McCain-Leiberman proposal. To read opinions from bill critics, go to http://www.nra.org.
To register your opinion with your United States Senator go to http://www.senate.gov/~sessions/ or www.senate.gov/~Shelby/
In Mississippi, go to http://www.lott.senate.gov or http://www.cochran.senate.gov
In Florida, go to http://www.graham.senate.gov or http://www.billnelson.senate.gov
What you didn't see on TV
According to a new report released by the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, states that fail to require criminal background checks at gun shows are flooding the nation with guns used in crimes. In states that require background checks at gun shows, 44 percent of guns traced to local crimes were originally sold in another state. In states that do not require background checks, only 24 percent of guns traced came from outside the state where the crime was committed. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi are among 32 states that failed to close the gun show loophole. The study also looked at whether requiring the background checks had an adverse affect on the gun shows. For full results of the study, visit the Americans for Gun Safety web site
http://wpmi.com/Global/story.asp?S=780614&nav=3w5L8zZ9
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Let's say they get this background check on private sales at gun shows BS passed. What's to keep me from going to a gun show with a sign on my shoulder that says I have a gun for sale. I get someone who's interested. We go off the site of the gun show and complete the transaction. I'm no longer at the gun show so the law wouldn't apply. We can't let 'em get their noses into this tent.
Mudge the surreptitious
I can't come to work today. The voices said, STAY HOME AND CLEAN THE GUNS!