# What percentage of guns used in crime are stolen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2013, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974 "2013-01-31T23:35:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2013, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/41 "2013-02-14T00:03:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Because he’s a \*criminal \*and thus doesn’t have $600? If he had $600 to throw around, he wouldn’t be a criminal. Read Freakonomics. I dont know where you guys are getting the idea that a gun costs $600. A hi point is about $150 and there are guns that run under $50. Guns are fairly simple machines not +5 wands of magic missile. Sure, a glock will cost $600 but they’re glocks not saturday night specials ---
**Author:** ![JessieFromAL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JessieFromAL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessieFromAL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/42 "2014-05-13T08:36:12Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Ducati, I don’t quite get this claim that the number of criminals buying guns “privately” at gunshows is trivial. is there a cite for this? I’m personally mystified as how one could tell since there would be no record of the sale and trying to trace a weapon used in a crime back would not be possible or do I miss something? The paragraphs listed below align with other studies and sources which I have read over the years. The subject of “gun show purchases used in crime” is easy to Google. Bottom line - the “gun show loophole”, which is as close to an outright lie as I can imagine, does not supply violent criminals with weapons for use in crimes. The following three paragraphs were copied from [http://nssf.org/factsheets/PDF/MythofGunShowLoophole.pdf](http://nssf.org/factsheets/PDF/MythofGunShowLoophole.pdf) According to a November 2001 study by the U.S. Department of Justice of state and prison inmates, less than one percent (0.7) of criminals that possessed a firearm during their current offense acquired their guns from gun shows. University of Maryland and National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study in 2008 found that there is “no evidence that gun shows lead to increases in either gun homicides or suicides.” The study also found that “tighter regulation of gun shows does not appear to reduce the number of firearms-related deaths.”v Gun control advocates often point to a 1999 study by the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments as evidence of widespread purchases of guns at gun shows by felons. This study, and other similar research, has been deliberately misused by gun control proponents to imply that criminals get their guns at gun shows. This is misleading, as the study only considers cases of criminal behavior related to gun shows that were already under investigation by the ATF. ---
**Author:** ![JessieFromAL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JessieFromAL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessieFromAL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/43 "2014-05-13T08:39:01Z")
"Are there unscrupulous sellers who only see green? Sure. Have criminals bought guns from them? Probably. Have those guns been used in crimes? Probably. " According to reliable crime stats, less than 10% of FFL holders account for the majority of guns used in commission of crimes. Let’s prosecute the shit out of them and clean the system up. ---
**Author:** ![JessieFromAL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JessieFromAL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessieFromAL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/44 "2014-05-13T08:43:44Z")
“confidential list of guns” A confidential list would be leaked or released through a simple FIA request. Seriously, you trust the government with that info? ---
**Author:** ![JessieFromAL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JessieFromAL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessieFromAL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/45 "2014-05-13T08:44:50Z")
… ---
**Author:** ![JessieFromAL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JessieFromAL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessieFromAL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/46 "2014-05-13T08:50:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Look, that study is suspect in two ways. First of all, there is a huge difference between how a arrestee got his gun, and how criminal get theirs. If I was arrested for shooting a intruder, but later the charges were dropped as it was justifiable, then that’s different that how a career gang member gets theirs. > > Next of all, the arrestee has had their right read. Now, yes a lot of criminals are stupid, but do you really expect them to admit to another felony right then & there? _“I … errr. Paid cash for it. Yeah. That’s it…cash. I don’t remember who I bought it from.”_:dubious: I am pretty sure those stats came from state prison inmates. IF not, they are close to the stats I have seen from surveys of state inmates. Google terms like “stolen guns use in crimes star prison inmate survey” for verification. ---
**Author:** ![JessieFromAL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JessieFromAL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessieFromAL)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/47 "2014-05-13T09:05:47Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > And, if they don;t need guns they will sell them to others who need them. So, yes, perhaps the gang-banger who did a drive by on a rival gang “bought” his gun, but he bought it at half-price from a thief or a fence. > > Look, we can trace the sale of all guns down the line from the company to somewhere or someone. If that someone has sold several/many guns used in murders, dont you think he’d be arrested as a accessory? And that the ATF, no friend to gun owners, would publicize that they could track this % of guns downline to guys who bought & resold guns? Strangely, that figure is missing. > > Now, if the ATF has not supplied that figure that means (to me, anyway) that wehn they tracked the guns downstream they mostly ended up with stolen guns or guns bought by the criminal legally across the counter. > > The ATF _hates_ the “gun-show loophole”, so since they would have the facts & figures to show that it was a major source of criminal guns, they’d have had huge press announcements about it. > > I am not saying that "straw man’ purchases or a few guys that sell a dozen guns a year or more to anyone who has the cash aren’t some part of the problem. But if they were a major part, the ATF would be screaming it. According to the Department of Justice, anywhere from 0.7 - 2.0% of all guns used in violent crimes come from gun shows. The vast majority of guns used in violent crime came from “Friends/family” and “legal sales”, both a hair under 40% each. Don’t confuse facts and reality with politics. > **[Governing: State and local government news and analysis](https://www.governing.com)** > > Get the latest news coverage about policy and management in state and local government. > **[Disarming Realities: As Gun Sales Soar, Gun Crimes Plummet](https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/)** > > Firearms sellers can thank the gun-control legislation lobbies for much of this business windfall. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/48 "2014-05-13T12:23:17Z")
> [@JessieFromAL](#): > > Bottom line - the “gun show loophole”, which is as close to an outright lie as I can imagine, does not supply violent criminals with weapons for use in crimes. > According to a November 2001 study by the U.S. Department of Justice of state and prison inmates, less than one percent (0.7) of criminals that possessed a firearm during their current offense acquired their guns from gun shows. Newsflash, the “gun show loophole” isn’t really about gun shows, it’s about private sales. Gun shows just happen to be a place where private sellers tend to aggregate for a period of time, and the name stuck. For all the background check, licensing, and other gun ownership laws, the reality is that any criminal can get a gun from a vibrant secondary market, with nobody (other than the criminal himself) responsible for ensuring that gun ownership laws are followed. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/49 "2014-05-13T13:06:17Z")
See, I believe that having background checks for all purchases to be good. But I also hesitate to see a comprehensive list of all gun owners and their guns in the US, based on a few states being…er…“proactive” in removing previously registered guns. Thus, I think it would be simple to create a “background check o’ matic” website, where you punch in the details of a person from their drivers’ license and/or social security number and then you get back a simple “Can Purchase”, “Detail Not Found” or “Cannot Purchase” from the website. The last two, obviously, cancels the sale. The seller takes a copy of the DL and saves the website as a PDF and boom: We have safe sales. This can also be used to streamline firearms sales at gun shops and so forth. Then we can have a conversation about when and where the “Cannot Purchase” line is drawn. Mental background line? Criminal background line? And so forth. The only potential drawback would be ensuring appropriate redress if a person was placed on the “Cannot Purchase” list accidentally or potentially maliciously. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/50 "2014-05-13T15:10:14Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Thus, I think it would be simple to create a “background check o’ matic” website, where you punch in the details of a person from their drivers’ license and/or social security number and then you get back a simple “Can Purchase”, “Detail Not Found” or “Cannot Purchase” from the website. The last two, obviously, cancels the sale. We have this already, it’s called the NICS. It is only available to FFLs and is maintained by the FBI. It has its own flaws in that it’s only as good as the data that is reported, but they claim that, _[“More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials.”](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics)_ ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/51 "2014-05-13T15:41:19Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > We have this already, it’s called the NICS. **It is only available to FFLs** and is maintained by the FBI. It has its own flaws in that it’s only as good as the data that is reported, but they claim that, _[“More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials.”](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics)_ Emphasis mine. And, thus, we don’t have what I was talking about. You as a private seller aren’t required to use or touch or register with or even acknowledge that website exists. If you are an FFL, then it’s already being used, yes that’s true. But no private seller even has access. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/52 "2014-05-13T17:32:29Z")
> [@JessieFromAL](#): > > According to a November 2001 study by the U.S. Department of Justice of state and prison inmates, less than one percent (0.7) of criminals that possessed a firearm during their current offense acquired their guns from gun shows. Well until the gung rabbers realized theyw ere about to be horribly embarrassed by walking away from the Newtown massacre empty handed, the gun show loophole was shorthand for private sales. After they overplayed their hand, they tried to get a fig leaf they were left struggling to get a background check requirement at gun shows but leave private sales alone unless they were advertised sales (good luck enforcing that). Of course they didn’t even have enough political capital left for THAT. > [@JessieFromAL](#): > > According to reliable crime stats, less than 10% of FFL holders account for the majority of guns used in commission of crimes. > > Let’s prosecute the shit out of them and clean the system up. I’m all for better enforcement but those 10% FFL holders frequently are just gun stores that operate in shitty neighborhoods. They may not be intentionally ignornat of the fact that the woman buying two guns is actually buying 2 guns at half a dozen stores with the intention to resell them to a gang. > [@JessieFromAL](#): > > “confidential list of guns” > > A confidential list would be leaked or released through a simple FIA request. > > Seriously, you trust the government with that info? Assuming you meant FOIA request, you would be wrong. FOIA doesn’t give the public access to everything. For example, your tax returns are confidential, I could not FOIA them. The penalty for leaking taxpayer information are pretty severe. That is why you didn’t see some random IRS employee leaking Mitt Romney’s 2009 tax returns. We could do something similar with the gun registry. And some Canadians have convinced me that we really only need to register handguns. > [@Bone](#): > > We have this already, it’s called the NICS. It is only available to FFLs and is maintained by the FBI. It has its own flaws in that it’s only as good as the data that is reported, but they claim that, _[“More than 100 million such checks have been made in the last decade, leading to more than 700,000 denials.”](http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics)_ And how many of those denials resulted in prosecutions? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/53 "2014-05-13T17:39:51Z")
My point was that if we wanted background checks for all sales an easy way to do this would be to open up NICS to the public. Infrastructure is already there. Instead of doing that gun control groups push for other restrictions on sales and other non-workable things . I didn’t state this well the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Sanity\_Challenged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Sanity\_Challenged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sanity_Challenged)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/54 "2014-05-14T15:05:13Z")
NICS is essentially open to the public already. If I wish to sell you a firearm and have doubts about your legality, we can go to almost any FFL and have them do a transfer for a fee ranging from $25-$50. Many conscientious gun owners will sell guns only to people they know, or will insist on either seeing the buyer’s concealed weapons permit (which required a background check) or doing an FFL transfer. It could be made more accessible to the public, allowing non-FFL holders to make the call or log onto a website version, thus saving the fee. It’s not clear that this would be an improvement, though, for several reasons: 1. Currently the buyer must initiate the paperwork that ultimately results in a background check. With an open-to-the-public NICS system, what would stop me from violating my neighbors’ privacy by running background checks on them just because I’m nosy? 2. Conducting transfers requires strict paperwork from the FFLs. The ATF regularly audits FFL paperwork, and any FFL not doing record-keeping up to standards risks losing their license. For an open NICS system, who does the ATF audit? There is no list of private gun sellers to pick from. What would the penalties be for getting the paperwork wrong, considering that the rate of errors will inevitably be higher among “amateur dealers”? 3. What will be gained? Straw purchases are generally accepted to be the #1 way guns fall into the hands of prohibited persons, and it is no harder to dupe a private seller that it is to dupe an FFL into a straw purchase. Opening up the NICS to the public costs us privacy and auditability, and gains us almost nothing towards keeping guns out of the hands of the prohibited. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/55 "2014-05-14T17:08:08Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Another question: the guns that were purchased by the US Government (and later exported to Mexico) as part of operation “Fast and Furious”-exactly how were they purchased? Do the records of the sales transactions exist anywhere? This would be interesting. This question dates back away in the thread, but I didn’t see it addressed. The guns were not purchased by the US government at all–they were purchased by private buyers from licensed dealers, so yes, the sale transaction paperwork is on file in the same way as any other sale at those dealers. The problem and scandal is that the government knew or strongly suspected those private buyers were straw purchasers, and the feds allowed the sales to go through anyway. (In most if not all cases, the sales were perfectly legal, in that the straw purchaser legitimately passed the background check.) When people were buying dozens and in some cases hundreds of guns in a relatively short period of time (e.g., 34 AK47 and similar in 24 days), there’s probably something wrong. The ATF strategy was to track these straw purchasers back to whomever they were selling to, and thence from the small fry to the big cheese; unfortunately, the feds lost track of too many of the guns along the way, and the weapons were successfully delivered to the cartels south of the border. Would gun rights supporters be willing to accept a system wherein a given purchaser can buy only a certain number of guns in a given time period? What would be the disadvantages therein? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/56 "2014-05-14T19:27:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Assuming you meant FOIA request, you would be wrong. FOIA doesn’t give the public access to everything. For example, your tax returns are confidential, I could not FOIA them. > > The penalty for leaking taxpayer information are pretty severe. That is why you didn’t see some random IRS employee leaking Mitt Romney’s 2009 tax returns. We could do something similar with the gun registry. And some Canadians have convinced me that we really only need to register handguns. While the potential for leaked information is a risk and something that would need to be guarded against, this is not my primary concern. A leak would be an unintentional misuse of the information. I am more concerned with an intentional use of such a registry for additional regulatory or confiscatory actions. > [@](#): > > And how many of those denials resulted in prosecutions? [This article](http://www.volokh.com/2013/04/26/why-maximal-enforcement-of-federal-gun-laws-is-not-always-a-good-idea/) is a good reason why prosecuting all of those denials is not necessarily a good idea: > [@](#): > > For example, in 1979, a young man gets in a loud argument and shoving-match with his live-in girlfriend. The neighbors in the apartment next door are annoyed by the clamor, and they call the police. The young man spends a night in jail, pleads guilty to disturbing the peace, and pays a $100 fine. He may have actually been innocent, since the girlfriend shoved first. But the cost of hiring a lawyer to take the case to trial was more than he could afford. Thereafter, he stays out of trouble. He buys a gun in 1985. In 1994, when his state (let’s say it’s Virginia) now has a functioning instant check system, he buys another gun, and is duly approved. In 1996, Congress changes the law to prohibit gun possession by domestic violence misdemeanants, and make the prohibition retroactive to misdemeanors from before 1996. 18 U.S. Code 922(g)(9). > > By 2013, BATFE has scoured state records of misdemeanor convictions, and decided which cases it will classify as “domestic violence.” So now the man is on the FBI’s prohibited persons list. When he tries to buy a gun in 2013, he is rejected. You can argue the pros and cons of whether he ought to be prohibited, but to me, it seems very unfair for him to be prosecuted for a federal felony. > > There are many, many other examples of people who can be prohibited persons without realizing it. The Iraq War veteran who received some mental health benefits, and then the Veterans Administrations gave his name (and the names of thousands of other similar veterans) to the FBI. The woman who is a lawful user of medical marijuana pursuant to her state law, and did not know that the federal government had obtained the state list of persons with medical marijuana cards. > > For above examples, it is really not a problem that no federal prosecution results when they fail the NICS check. > > … > > The National Rifle Association and CCRKBA have quite persuasively documented the tendency of BATFE to, at least some of the time, try to boost its numbers by concentrating enforcement efforts on easy-to-prosecute technical violations, rather than on situations where there is a real danger to public safety. Enacting new laws demanding “maximal” enforcement of NICS, or trying to increase the prosecutions for 18 U.S.C 922 & 924 across the board, would be a poor use of criminal justice resources, and would inflict very excessive penalties on many people who are harmless. If proponents of increased federal prosecution can document a large number of cases which really should be prosecuted, and which are not being prosecuted, the best solution would be a new President who would appoint a BATFE Director and U.S. Attorneys who would bring the cases which really help public safety–and who would also know that not every violation of every iota of sections 922 and 924 is worth making a federal case. > [@Sanity\_Challenged](#): > > 1. What will be gained? Straw purchases are generally accepted to be the #1 way guns fall into the hands of prohibited persons, and it is no harder to dupe a private seller that it is to dupe an FFL into a straw purchase. > > Opening up the NICS to the public costs us privacy and auditability, and gains us almost nothing towards keeping guns out of the hands of the prohibited. What will be gained? The ability for a private seller to determine if the person they are selling to is prohibited. This is not meant to create a trail for the BATFE to audit that people are performing this check. People don’t want to sell to prohibited persons. Right now there is no way to do that on their own with private sales. It will not solve all problems, but will provide an avenue to address some problems, some of the time. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/57 "2014-05-14T20:10:37Z")
> [@Sanity\_Challenged](#): > > Opening up the NICS to the public costs us privacy and auditability, and gains us almost nothing towards keeping guns out of the hands of the prohibited. I agree, it would be better to just issue gun licenses to all and make it illegal to sell a gun to someone without a license. Then require the buyer to register the gun at the post office or DMV or something. > [@slash2k](#): > > Would gun rights supporters be willing to accept a system wherein a given purchaser can buy only a certain number of guns in a given time period? What would be the disadvantages therein? An AK-47 is just another rifle. Rifles in general are not a problem in America and if Mexico wasn’t such a basketcase, they wouldn’t be a problem there either. Rifles are much less useful than handguns for crimes and much more useful for paramilitary. So any sort of regulation on rifles would probably be pretty pointless for American crime. Mexico on the other hand has much bigger problems with reifles because their criminals are effectively paramilitary. I don’t have a personal problem with per month gun limits but I have a collector friend who sometimes buys dozens of guns at a time (entire collections). If you are only talking about retail gun sales of handguns, I wouldn personally be OK with it but I don’t know that it would do much good. We had a one gun a month rule in Virginia for 20 years. I don’t know if it was doing much good. [http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-ends-monthly-one-gun-purchase-limit/article\_55c95c91-8638-5973-bdb5-c13f93813447.html](http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-ends-monthly-one-gun-purchase-limit/article_55c95c91-8638-5973-bdb5-c13f93813447.html) > [@Bone](#): > > While the potential for leaked information is a risk and something that would need to be guarded against, this is not my primary concern. A leak would be an unintentional misuse of the information. I am more concerned with an intentional use of such a registry for additional regulatory or confiscatory actions. I think that being in California colors your opinion on this. I don’t see a federal confiscation in the forseeable future. We have had a federal registry of machine guns for almost a century without confiscation. I don’t see why a federal registry of handguns would be any different (I now only support licensing and registration of handguns). > [@](#): > > [This article](http://www.volokh.com/2013/04/26/why-maximal-enforcement-of-federal-gun-laws-is-not-always-a-good-idea/) is a good reason why prosecuting all of those denials is not necessarily a good idea: You don’t have to prosecute everyone because there are obviously cases like the one you mentioned, but there are thousands of felons that try to buy a gun every year and noone ever follows up on those do they? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/58 "2014-05-14T20:17:26Z")
Why is there an exemption on the background check requirement for private sales, anyway? If we accept that it’s a good idea for dealers to require background checks, why isn’t it a good idea for non-dealers, too? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/59 "2014-05-14T20:33:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think that being in California colors your opinion on this. I don’t see a federal confiscation in the forseeable future. We have had a federal registry of machine guns for almost a century without confiscation. I don’t see why a federal registry of handguns would be any different (I now only support licensing and registration of handguns). Being in California does color my opinion. I live in the most populous state in the union and our laws suck. We should be an example to all other states of how far things can go off the rails if you yield any ground. That and there are other states (DC for one) that try to import our laws for their own purposes. We are a warning to be heeded, not an anomaly to be dismissed. > [@](#): > > You don’t have to prosecute everyone because there are obviously cases like the one you mentioned, but there are thousands of felons that try to buy a gun every year and noone ever follows up on those do they? Gun crimes are going down in huge numbers. What’s the point of using those resources for these purposes when it’s not presenting a problem. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974/60 "2014-05-15T00:03:21Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > We are a warning to be heeded, not an anomaly to be dismissed. I agree California is not a significant anomaly when it comes to learning about the dangers of gun ownership. The gun ownership rate in California is 33 percent below the US average. Source: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html) Gun deaths in California are 24 percent below the US average. Source: > **[Deaths Due to Injury by Firearms per 100,000 Population | KFF](https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-death-rate-per-100000/)** > > guns, gun-related deaths While this isn’t a perfect correlation, it fits into the overall pattern of fewer guns, less people dying from said guns. > [@Bone](#): > > Gun crimes are going down in huge numbers. What’s the point of using those resources for these purposes when it’s not presenting a problem. The last year I can find statistics for is 2011, when 32,163 US residents were shot to death. This was a record number. A record rate per 100,000? No. Not quite. Thank the trauma surgeons for that. While I usually try to keep down the heat on these forums, your “not presenting a problem” is hard bait not to swallow. How do you think this sounds to people who aren’t caught up in the gun culture and cared over a mere 2,977 on 9/11? Even if someone cares not a whit over suicide deaths (US guns deaths are mostly suicides), there were 11,101 US gun homicide deaths in 2011, down from a recent peak of 12,791 in 2006 – which was up from 9,257 in 1988. These are huge numbers compared to other major tragedies most of us care about. Source for numbers in this paragraph: [http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states](http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states) Are vehicle accidents just as big a concern as gun deaths, despite going down at a higher rate? Certainly. We need safer guns, just like safer cars. But only in the gun case is there a culture [desperate to stop safety improvements](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/maryland-dealer-will-defy-gun-rights-advocates-by-selling-nations-first-smart-gun/2014/05/01/564efa48-d14d-11e3-937f-d3026234b51c_story.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-guns-used-in-crime-are-stolen/648974.md?page=4)