Gun Control Debunked: Study Shows Guns Used by Most Criminals Not Obtained Legally

As the talking head panels of the mainstream media (MSM) continue to ramp up the gun control debate, a report released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) has confirmed that gun control has little to do with criminal activity. Criminals do not buy their weapons legally, but rather turn to the black market.

The 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI) shows that 287,400 prisoners possessed a firearm during their offense. Out of those quarter of a million criminals, 56 percent stole their weapon, 7 percent obtained it on the street, and 6 percent found it. Just over 25 percent received their weapon from a friend or family member.

Only 1.3 percent of all prisoners that obtained a weapon to commit a crime purchased it in a retail store. Contrary to what is often reported by the lamestream media, few weapons used in a crime (0.8 percent) were bought at gun shows.

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) does a masterful job of either cooking or outright ignoring those numbers presented by the DOJ. At issue are the conflict between the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the cities of Chicago and Washington D.C.

In the case of D.C. vs. Heller, CSGV takes issue with the NRA’s contention that gun violence in those cities is directly related to, not too few gun restrictions but too many. The NRA’s reasoning is that those city’s laws force criminals to look outside the city for sources where guns can be bought legally.

David Kairys, a professor of Law at Temple University tries to back this up in his book Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black and Male. In it he says: “The market makes new handguns so easily available—often for less than one hundred dollars new, right out of the box—that it makes no sense to steal one.”

Kairys writes that anyone without a criminal record “can go to a licensed gun store in most states, legally buy as many handguns as he or she wants, and walk out the door with them.” He is right that there are “meaningful limit” on the legal sale of firearms because private individuals “are not required to run Brady background checks on purchasers.”

But that is where the most recent report from the DOJ causes progressive gun control arguments, like those of Professor Kairys to crumble. Well over half of the criminals interviewed in the SPI stole their weapon.

Despite Kairy’s assertion that “easily obtained guns is the result of our weak gun laws, which do little to regulate the firearms industry” the hard DOJ facts paint a different picture.

An ironic suggestion for how to slow the flow of illegal guns is to adopt “strong, clear and specific ‘straw purchase’ laws. Such would have landed the Obama administration’s DOJ leadership in prison.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder ended up resigning after he lied about his ill-conceived plan, dubbed Fast and Furious, that led to the death of border patrol agent Brian Terry.

In that instance, Holder’s determination to believe that gun shows are the cause for gun crime led him to authorize ‘straw man’ purchases. Fast and Furious is a glaring example of government becoming the problem rather than solving one.

Books like the one by Kairy do more to prove the NRA’s case than anything else. Or as Beth Baumann of Townhall noted, the “more gun control advocates try to limit the Second Amendment with studies, the more it blows back in their face.”

The State of California trumpets its tough gun control laws and then UC Davis issues a report showing it has had no effect. Consider the following the findings of a joint study done by the University and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health:

A study of firearm homicide and suicide rates in the 10 years after California simultaneously mandated comprehensive background checks for nearly all firearm sales and a prohibition on gun purchase and possession for persons convicted of most violent misdemeanor crimes found no change in the rates of either cause of death from firearms.

The same is true for suicides and guns. Researchers report there was a 10.9 percent decrease in firearm suicides that same time period, but suicides decreased across the board whether a firearm was used or not.

Once again, the media is content to draw gun owners with the same broad brush they use on all conservatives. No matter what the facts say.