In President Obama’s action plan, there are four general
categories that will be focused on to lower gun violence in America; closing
loopholes in background checks, banning assault weapons and high capacity
magazines, making schools safer, and making mental health more readily
available. Since we are discussing the
strengths and weaknesses of his plan, I feel that a “good news – bad news”
style is appropriate. This week we will
cover the strengths and weaknesses of their efforts to close the loopholes in
background checks. Let’s start gentle;
we’ll discuss the strengths first.
One of
the first things stated in Obama’s action plan is to require background checks
for all gun sales. Sounds pretty
straight forward right? As of right now,
it is legal for people to sell their personal collection themselves, it is
called ‘private party sale’, and no paperwork or background checks are
required. As much as 40% of all gun
sales are done through private party sales and are completely legal. How do we fix this you ask? Some states have already made progress on
this issue, going past the federal regulations on background checks for
firearms, as shown in this chart below:
In states on this chart like California, there are
regulations on all gun sales, so if a private party wishes to sell their
firearm, they must do so through a licensed vendor. They can go in, drop it off and at some point
a buyer will acquire it though the licensed dealer with proper paperwork. There is no requirement that the buyer and
seller have to be there at the same time, it just has to be done through a
licensed dealer. Some vendors even have
a separate wall for guns being sold from a private party. Most retail stores that are selling guns for
private parties charge a fee for selling the gun, which is understandable. It may be a small inconvenience to private
parties, but if all 50 states enact these laws, it –in theory- can lower the
opportunities for unfit people to acquire firearms.
In the 33 states with just federal background
check regulations, both private parties and licensed retailers can rent table
space at a gun show, but only the retailers run background checks. Between 25% and 50% of table space is for
private party sales, and most of the time they hold signs out that say,
‘private sales’. This implies no
identification or paperwork is necessary, which is incentive to buy from a
private party if you are a criminal or cannot legally acquire one with a proper
background check; thus, you have a ‘Gun Show Loophole’. In these 17 states with extra regulation,
there is no gun-show loophole. Private
parties can still rent table space at gun shows, but designated licensed
retailers act as transfer agents during sales so background checks can still be
ran. If all of the states pick up on
extra background check regulations, there will be less opportunities for criminals
to acquire firearms legally.
If
we put the proper laws in place to make sure they work properly, excluding ‘common
sense’ exchanges through family, I think
this will be a very successful part of President Obama’s action plan.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/29/gun-debate-lawmakers-eye-troubled-background-check-system/
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