Just curious about the other 98%. Assuming that the majority of them are originally purchased through legitmate means, how do they eventually wind up in the hands of the bad guys?
From the Bureau of Justice Statistics:
According to the 1997 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those possessing a gun, the source of the gun was from -
[ul]
[li]a flea market or gun show for fewer than 2% [/li][li]a retail store or pawnshop for about 12% [/li][li]family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source for 80% [/li][li]During the offense that brought them to prison, 15% of State inmates and 13% of Federal inmates carried a handgun, and about 2%, a military-style semiautomatic gun. [/li][li]On average, State inmates possessing a firearm received sentences of 18 years, while those without a weapon had an average sentence of 12 years. [/li][li]Among prisoners carrying a firearm during their crime, 40% of State inmates and 56% of Federal inmates received a sentence enhancement because of the firearm. [/li][/ul]
They don’t. To deny a person a firearm purchase on the basis of a mental deficiency, the person must have been so adjudged by a court of law. The BATFE isn’t reviewing medical records or history.
That is how it now stands to the best of my knowledge. I’m pretty sure the yellow sheet (that’s what the NICS form a prospective firearm purchaser must complete is generally called) requires you to state only felony convictions, not indictments, or mere charges.
I should clarify that a little bit. If a propsective purchaser is under indictment for a felony at the time the NICS check is requested he will be denied the purchase. If he’s not convicted of that felony charge in the subsequent hearing(s), he will then be eligible to purchase a gun.
UncleBeer, this and your previous post are correct for the Federal background check for purchase, but I think AHunter3 was asking about the may issue clause for a state-issued gun permit. In Massachusetts (and presumably other “may issue” states), the issuing authority can ask any questions he wants and base his decision on any criteria he wants, above and beyond the federal and state mandated requirements. If he wants to deny you because you were arrested for shoplifting when you were 15, even if no charges were brought, he is free to do so. There is a clause in the MA law which allows you to bring the issuing authority to court if you think you were unfairly denied, but AFAIK that is very rarely successful in MA.
“Gun control” is a broad category of issues, like “traffic safety”.
My question is, how powerful is the movement to ban guns in all or most cases (in comparison to, say, the movement to ban abortion) as opposed to things like registration.
Almost all of them say, “We don’t want to ban hunting and sporting firearms, blaa blaa blaa.” So if what they say genuinely reflects their end-goal (and that’s a big “if”), then a movement to “ban all guns in the U.S.” is virtually non-existent.
Of course, if this were really true, then the gun control folks would “close up shop” after their laws were passed. But they never close up the shop. Never. History shows that they start another campaign to ban or restrict a new class of firearms. Every time.
They keep “chipping away at it,” little by little…
I can figure out that it’s probably illegal to make your own machineguns, or to convert a semi-automatic into full-auto… but are there any other less obvious restrictions?
I can think of barrel length on a shotgun and rifle ammo in a pistol, but, yeah… what else are you limited in trying?