Inside Gun Shows: What goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody's Watching. UCDavis Health System

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http://www.physorg.com/print171227313.html


Gun shows and the lack of uniform gun-control laws provide easy access to guns that can be used for criminal purposes, according to a new report released today from the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program.

Entitled "Inside Gun Shows: What Goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody's Watching," the comprehensive, 300-page report provides a "you are there" exposure to the issue based on direct observations made at 78 gun shows in 19 states, most of them between 2005 and 2008.

The report features hundreds of photographs and some video that show:

• illegal straw purchases, whereby a surrogate buys from a licensed retailer on behalf of another

• anonymous, undocumented private-party gun sales

• widespread availability of assault weapons, .50-caliber rifles and the parts needed to make untraceable guns

• links between gun shows and the neo-Confederacy movement and neo-Nazism

"Illegal transactions were often conducted entirely out in the open," said Garen Wintemute, professor of emergency medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine and a leading researcher on firearm violence who authored the report. "The sense of impunity among sellers and purchasers in these cases was remarkable."

While enforcement programs and regulatory policies are in effect in some states, Wintemute says more needs to be done to prevent both unregulated gun sales and illegal gun sales at gun shows and elsewhere.

"Law enforcement needs to have an expanded, proactive program at gun shows to prevent the illegal sale of guns," said Wintemute. "We also need to update existing laws so that all private-party gun sales, not just those at gun shows, are subject to the same safeguards now in place for gun purchases from licensed dealers."

Current laws require licensed retailers to see a buyer's identification and require buyers to complete a lengthy Firearms Transaction Record, which certifies that buyers are purchasing a gun for themselves and that they are not prohibited from owning a gun. Licensed retailers also must submit this information for a background check and keep a record of the purchase. Unlicensed vendors or individual attendees at gun shows, however, are not required to follow these same federal safeguards.

"Undocumented private party gun sale transactions account for as many as 40 percent of all gun sales," said Wintemute. "They are quick and convenient, and their anonymity attracts those who put privacy at a premium. These same attributes make private-party gun sales a principal option for a felon or other prohibited person."

Gun shows are a leading source of guns used in criminal violence in Northern California, the United States, Mexico and Canada. Legislation to regulate gun shows has been introduced in Congress, and stepped-up enforcement operations are under way. Nonetheless, it has been suggested that efforts to prevent gun violence should focus elsewhere.

This research was funded with a grant from the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Foundation, the Joyce Foundation and the California Wellness Foundation.

Provided by University of California


http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/

Inside Gun Shows contains hundreds of photographs and is megabyte-intensive; each file contains a single chapter.Thanks for your patience in downloading it. Some of the photo-narratives in chapters 3 and 4 are designed to be viewed astwo-page spreads.

Executive Summary http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGSexecsummweb.pdf

Cover and Introduction http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGScoverweb.pdf

Chapter 1: Gun Shows in Context http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS1web.pdf

Chapter 2: How Gun Shows Work http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS2web.pdf

Chapter 3: Buying and Selling http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS3web.pdf

Chapter 4: What's for Sale http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS4web.pdf

Chapter 5: Culture http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS5web.pdf

Chapter 6: Politics http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS6web.pdf

Chapter 7: Interventions http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp/pdf/IGS/IGS7web.pdf

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Already thoroughly debunked.

OCDO Thread here.

Article here.

TFred

Text here (but see embedded video in original article):

New gun show "study" re-warms emotion to push anti-gun agenda

September 4, 12:45 PM
Seattle Gun Rights Examiner
Dave Workman

A new study from perennial anti-gunner Garen Wintemute, MD titled Inside Gun Shows: What Goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody’s Looking, may have a short shelf-life after Wintemute acknowledged to a reporter for a Fox News affiliate in Sacramento that the data isn’t there to support what amounts to personal opinion and insinuation.

KTXL in Sacramento attended a press conference held by Wintemute to announce his “findings” and in the process encountered another researcher from UC Davis, where Wintemute heads the Violence Prevention Research Program for the Department of Emergency Medicine. That researcher was identified as Jesse Bengson, who told a reporter that he had hoped to see some scientific data linking gun show sales to crime.

Well under 10 percent of those present are other than white males, and most of these men appear to be well over 50 years of age.”
So what?

“None of that was presented,” Bengson observed.

To which Wintemute responded, “It’s just as a matter of logic that private party sales are more likely to result in criminal use of firearms, but it’s an inference at this point.”

Does anyone wonder what would happen if Prof. John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns had uttered such a statement in defense of his research? People like Wintemute would be heating up the tar and gathering feathers.

Gun prohibitionists have had a tough time selling the gun control philosophy over the past few years, particularly when they don’t get a completely free ride from the mainstream press as they used to. ABC’s inimitable John Stossel really did a number of many of the gun control myths on a “20/20” segment a couple of years ago that remains one of the best pieces ever done on the issue by any network.

A story on Wintemute’s new report will appear in the upcoming issue of Gun Week under my byline.

The report’s executive summary contains a couple of glaring contradictions beyond his “inference” about private party gun show sales providing more guns for criminals.

Much has been said by gun prohibitionists about the so-called “gun show loophole” being these private sales, which do not require background checks under existing federal statute. Wintemute’s report tends to contradict his own notion.

Another UC Davis researcher who attended the press conference hoping to see scientific data linking gun show sales and crime was disappointed.

"None of that was presented," said Jesse Bengson.

“Much of the concern about gun shows and crime guns focuses on private party gun sales,” he writes. “Licensed retailers are implicated, too. Results of trafficking investigations suggest that two-thirds of crime guns obtained at gun shows are sold by licensed retailers. Among gun dealers, those who sell at gun shows are more likely to have crime guns traced to them than those who do not.”

He also asserts that “There is solid evidence, primarily from investigations of illegal gun trafficking, that gun shows are an important source of crime guns.” However, he immediately adds, “But less than 2% of felons incarcerated for crimes involving guns acquired those guns themselves at gun shows.” He suggests they get the guns through straw sales, but that would still suggest that the transactions involve commercial dealers who run background checks on the buyer, not private sellers.

To further demonize gun shows, Wintemute goes after the “demographic homogeneity” at these shows, complaining that “Well under 10 percent of those present are other than white males, and most of these men appear to be well over 50 years of age.”

So what? Why does Wintemute want to stereotype gun show attendees as white guys over age 50? (One might legitimately ask, would he raise equal alarm if he visited a bunch of hip-hop clubs and found “well under 10 percent of those present to be white males over 50 years of age?”)

Wintemute conceded that the data isn't there.

'It's just as a matter of logic that private party sales are more likely to result in criminal use of firearms, but it's an inference at this point.'

Then he drops this gem: “Three aspects of the social environment at gun shows seem to have significant potential to contribute to firearm violence. These concern 1) promoting objectification and violence in relationships between men and women, 2) facilitating children’s access to firearms, and 3) endorsing violence as a tool for problem-solving.”

Translation: Beyond just supplying guns to thugs and crackheads, gun shows are also breeding grounds for domestic violence, child endangerment and vigilantism. At least, that is the image that prohibitionists hope would be burned into everyone’s subconscious.

But there is more. Wintemute saves some space to lament the appearance at gun shows of “Neo-Confederacy” groups, “Ku Klux Klan” merchandise and “new Nazi materials.” And in the same sentence he specifically notes that The Turner Diaries (a white supremacist Armageddon-type fantasy), and Mein Kampf (Adolf Hitler’s book-length diatribe) can be found next to More Guns, Less Crime.

That latter book was the exhaustive work by Prof. Lott and David Mustard some years ago that demolished much of the anti-gun propaganda that had, up to that time, been pandered as definitive research on the scourge of guns in society. Anti-gunners would dearly love to relegate Lott’s research to the trash bin, but they can’t.

Wintemute’s report is based on covert visits (with hidden cameras) to 78 gun shows in 19 states over the course of three years, 2005-2008. That’s not a very big sampling; less than 1 percent. He notes that of the 9.9 million background checks conducted for gun sales in 2008 alone, only 147,000 resulted in a denial, approximately 1.5 percent.

There is one important thing to be learned from Wintemute’s study: Even with the barest minimum of statistics, anti-gunners will reach conclusions based on a “matter of logic” and “an inference at this point” to continue their campaign of public disarmament.

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Believe nothing you read or hear without verifying it yourself unless it fits your preexisting worldview.

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TFred wrote:

And in the same sentence he specifically notes ... More Guns, Less Crime.

That latter book was the exhaustive work by Prof. Lott and David Mustard some years ago that demolished much of the anti-gun propaganda

Click to expand...

I carefully avoid pre-digested faux-analysis by the unqualified and so have avoided any of the 'examiners', prejudiced as I am by reading beyond their blog. This quoted solipsism by Workman impeaches its author.

My copy of More Guns, Less Crime is dog-eared and scribbled-in enough for me to know that Mustard is not mentioned until late; well ... pg 147.

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One thing these UC Bedwetters failed to adress was the fact that most of the "victims" of felonious gun crimes are themselves violent felons, or engaged in violent criminal gang activity. I say we need an ammo subsidy instead of welfare, and the rest of us will take care of the remains of the criminal underground after they've thinned themselves out and sought out us as new victims. Kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

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Man I about choked. Every gun show I have ever attended has been absolutely crawling with uniformed and plainclothes State Local and Fed LEOs. This LE presence makes BGs VERY hinky.

One of these days one of these nosy "muckrakers" is gonna walk up to a plainclothes Virginia State Trooper and inquire about a straw purchase and wind up in a whole big ugly mess of trouble. THAT I'd like to see on the "news".