"Question 3" fact-checking

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There was a letter to the editor in a regional (Midcoast) weekly newspaper recently that included something that set off my BS Detector: "Each year, 5,500 guns are sold and shipped from Maine to Massachusetts without background checks. This is because Massachusetts has closed this loophole." I Googled it, but keep ending up with the purported 5,500 denials of gun purchases because of NICS checks since 1998.
I suspect the writer has pulled the figure from some warm dark location on the lower posterior portion of his/her anatomy, and I'm going to challenge him (or her; it's somebody from Camden) to cite a source. It also sounds a lot like the claim about how NICS has blocked 5,500 gun sales to prohibited persons in Maine. I suspect that at least some of those denials were false positives, but I haven't yet found good data on that, wither. It just sounds too much like something Everytown "extrapolated" from some lame-o calculations like they pulled after their half-azzed "sting" operation in Vermont a couple of years ago.
Any help that anyone can give me to poke holes in that claim will be much appreciated.
I've already got him on his claim that "Many other states have already passed a law like this, making background checks truly universal." I don't think eight out of fifty (plus D.C., according to Wikipedia) is "many." [rolleyes]
 
The 5,500 Number

Yes, this is being bandied about by the proponents of Question 3.

I believe the 5,500 number refers to gun buyers denied by the FBI background check system in Maine since 1998.

The statement; "Each year, 5,500 guns are sold and shipped from Maine to Massachusetts without background checks. This is because Massachusetts has closed this loophole" is totally ridiculous.

-- first, all interstate gun sales must be routed through a gun dealer and undergo a background check
-- second, ATF trace data shows FAR fewer guns migrating from Maine to Massachusetts (94 in 2015)
-- third, ATF trace data for Massachusetts show "average time to crime" of 12.34 years for guns traced.

https://www.atf.gov/docs/163556-maatfwebsite15pdf/download

Getting back to the FBI background check system denials;

1. Most of these are "false positives" wherein the buyer was wrongfully denied the gun purchase
2. The 5,500 Maine denials since 1998 have to be compared to the national total of 1.3 million.
3. Only a tiny fraction of the denied buyers are ever prosecuted.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...-denials-not-prosecuted-appeals-not-processed

http://www.politifact.com/new-hamps...eople-trying-buy-gun-illegally-us-senator-ke/

Hope this helps - these proponents are easy to debate when you are armed with the facts.

All they seem to do is "cut & paste" the info provided to them from Bloomberg - and they get that wrong.
 
Hope this helps - these proponents are easy to debate when you are armed with the facts.
That's exactly what I needed. I will gleefully poke holes in his BS claims. I might even get a dig in there with that Mark Twain thing about "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." [smile]

All they seem to do is "cut & paste" the info provided to them from Bloomberg - and they get that wrong.
Another gem from that letter was "Many other states have already passed a law like this, making background checks truly universal." I don't consider 8 out of 50 (not counting D.C. as a state) to be "many."
And "The present 'Question 3,' if you take the time to read it, is not a bleeding-heart 'take away my guns' document. It has been very carefully written not to take away the essential freedoms of gun ownership." When at least one state AG (Nevada, maybe?) said that his state's "UBC" law or proposed law could not be enforced without gun registration, that would provide a clue for some people (mainly gun owners and others for whom the Sixties weren't "a little too good") what the proponents' intention is. I'll get a jab in there about Hillary's "worth looking at" comment about Australian-style confiscation. (I don't care whether or not she knew at the time that it was a "buyback program." I think she knew damn well when she made the comment that the AU confiscation was mandatory.)

I think the letter writer is an aging hippie who might be better off just writing letters about how microcars like the one he drives are the wave of the future. [rolleyes]
Thanks for the reply.
 
Challenging the background check proponents

"Thanks for the reply".

You're welcome - thanks for helping out with challenging these people.
 
I enjoy it. Can't do much about the anti-gunners who think they have some kind of corner on "common sense, but (luckily) they're not the entire electorate. I believe that ignorance is just a lack of knowledge about something, and it can be cured with information. Stupidity, on the other hand, tends to go on forever; it can't be fixed. I might not be able to do much about the stupid ones, but maybe I can keep them from confusing too many other people.
I'm hoping I can get the message out to folks who are undecided, or who might have been misled by the Bloomiebots' claims. As Charles C.W. Cooke wrote in an article in America's First Freedom, we can't allow politicians to "reduce the complex to the simplistic."
[In a referendum] By design, detail, nuance and complexity are distilled down into a binary question—a question that is often dishonestly phrased and cynically presented. In consequence, what should be a debate about the law becomes a debate about general statements of principle. “Do you like children? Do you like safety? Then vote ‘Yes!’”

I also got some very good info from Bob Depino at Gun Owners of Vermont. Bob did some absolutely excellent research about how few guns from VT actually were recovered by law enforcement in New York, despite VT getting blamed for being a prime source of illegal guns in NY. It's pretty much the same with MA. With all those guns supposedly getting into MA from Maine and VT, one might think everybody in the Bay State would have one. [rolleyes]
 
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