Junk “Consensus”

So Joan Peterson links this story in her twitter:

A majority of gun dealers support expanded background checks, according to a survey.

Though enhanced checks on potential gun buyers may reduce sales, retailers who responded to the survey revealed near unanimous support for denying gun purchases based on prior convictions, mental illness or a history of alcohol or drug abuse.

The survey was conducted by the University of California, Davis, Violence Prevention Research Program. The researchers released this week the survey’s third report, which will be published in the coming weeks in the Journal of Urban Health.

Using retailer-specific sales data from the FBI, the survey authors identified 9,720 dealers, pawnbrokers and gunsmiths across 43 states who sold 50 or more firearms per year. The FBI didn’t have the data for seven states. From that list, surveys were mailed to 1,601 randomly-selected gun sellers, whose response rate was 36.9 percent.

The authors said they believe the survey is the first to gather gun dealers’ views on federal gun policy.

The survey found that 55.4 percent of respondents supported expanding comprehensive background checks to gun shows, the Internet and all private transfers.

WOW! There’s a lot to dig through. First 55.4% IS a majority, but just barely. Also unless they are citing some completely unsubscribed legislation, the only background check “enhancement” is laws demanding all firearms transactions be done through FFLs. Of course such laws would do nothing to make us any safer, as these crazy mass shooters we’ve been hearing about in the news have all bought their guns through FFLs as prescribed, and no legislation would have stopped a single one of them. Further the day-to-day shooting you barely hear about, but claims exponentially more lives are mostly committed by urban gang members who are already prohibited, and even under current law can be arrested when the gun changes hands, or any time either “owner” is caught, and these charges all stipulate prison time…not that our Justice system ever really brings the hammer down on them.

So with a ban on private sale it does nothing but make business BETTER for gun dealers. They get to charge people to use their federal license to get the gun to change hands. Further they get increased foot traffic which means they might make more sales of guns, accessories, or ammo. There is NO way these laws would “Reduce Sales”, just the opposite.

Also the government reaps a bit too! An increased demand for FFLs means more people paying the license fees, and taxes for storefronts which are also required for licenses. On the more sinister sense you also have a VERY easy method for backdoor registration that there is ample evidence of, most recently the information that the FBI was able to trace the Navy Yard Shooter’s shotgun. How the law is written traces can only be done from the maker down stream to the last FFL to have handled a firearm. There’s a registry, and the FBI used it to track the last point of contact with that shotgun directly!

Next up, let’s note that University of California, Davis, Violence Prevention Research Program does all its research for Joyce grants, and Joyce Grant recipients ALWAYS release reports that side with the extremist anti-gun agenda without exception. The results of this study were decided before even the survey methods and questions were penned.

Let’s move on to the survey. They sent questionnaires to ONLY 1,601 FFLs that they handpicked from a subset of 9,720 dealers. Since UC Davis and their anti-gun history is well known, of these hand picked groups only 36.9% responded. The remaining 63% knew a trap when they saw it and filed it in the circular bin.

So let’s break down those numbers, here’s a recent article about FFLs in America:

There are more than 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers in the United States, according to the latest Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives numbers (as of Aug. 1) . Of those, 51,438 are retail gun stores, 7,356 are pawn shops and 61,562 are collectors, with the balance of the licenses belonging mostly to manufacturers and importers of firearms and destructive devices.

So the 51,438 01 FFLs plus the 7,356 02 FFLs for a total of 58,794, they only considered 9,720 of them. That’s only 16.5% of the 01 and 02 FFLs, ie Gun shops and pawnbrokers that deal in firearms! Of that 16.5% they only mailed surveys to 1,601, so now we’re dealing with 2.7% of the total 01 and 02 FFLs.

And of those 1,601, only 36.9% or 591 responded. So now we’re looking at 1% even! Again this isn’t ALL the FFLs in America, just the two most common retail-type FFLs that directly deal with customers.

Of that 591 only 55.4% seemed to agree with the biased questions were asked. That’s 328 dealers! That’s one-half-of one-percent! Yeah as in 0.55% by my calculations. You run the numbers yourself and see how it goes!

Hell let’s even step back, some 01 and 02 FFLs were disqualified for doing small amounts of sales or from being from the 7 states they didn’t survery. So the 328 dealers were only 3.4% of that initial weighted 9,720 dealers!

Wow, that really sounds like “Most Gun Dealers” doesn’t it?

Man its amazing these bullshit laws can’t get off the ground!

Keep spinning antis!