What portion of state prison inmates who carried a gun during crimes for which they were jailed obtained their firearms from gun shows?

This is a question to ask yourself as President Biden has made the “gun show loophole” a big part of his push to restrict the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

What is the correct answer?

Less than 1%. That does not seem to be an effective way to reduce violent crime, does it?

According to Just Facts:

A study of 2004 data published by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2013 found that 0.8% of state prisoners who carried a gun during crimes for which they were jailed obtained their firearms from gun shows. A DOJ study of 1997 data published in 2001 found the same result. These firearm-carrying criminals obtained their guns from the following sources: 40.0% through an illegal/street source, 37.4% through family or friends, 7.3% at a retail store, 2.6% at a pawnshop, 0.8% at a gun show, and 0.6% at a flea market. Per the DOJ, “A gun show is an exhibition or gathering where guns, gun parts, ammunition, gun accessories, and literature are displayed, bought, sold, traded, and discussed.” Roughly 2,000 to 5,200 gun shows take place each year in the United States.

Purchasing a firearm at a gun show requires filling out the same form 4733 that one would fill out if purchasing from a gun store.  This form is submitted by the entity with a Federal Firearms License to the FBI as part of the background check before the sale can be approved. This is the same form incidentally, that Hunter Biden, the President’s son, lied on, concerning his history of drug abuse.

Further data from the Department of Justice can be obtained here.

The President also made a big deal about the use of “ghost guns.” He alleges these guns are untraceable.

It is true that parts can be purchased online, but the finished “receiver”, which is the lower part of the gun, has a serial number on it and that this “receiver” must be treated as a regular firearm in terms of reporting.

According to Bearing Arms.com:

Every firearm made or imported into the United States has a part of the frame or receiver that the ATF recognizes as the actual firearm that carries the serial number. All the other pieces are just parts. It is these other pieces—barrels, stocks, handguards, sights, triggers, etc—that can be bought online or in retail stores as individual parts or in parts kits, but the receiver must either be purchased as a serialized firearm like a whole gun, or it must be manufactured from an incomplete piece of material into a functional firearm.

Biden and his Progressive allies are playing a cynical game, exploiting the general ignorance of the press and the public, supposedly to fight crime. Yet in terms of crime fighting look at what they are really doing.

Progressives are cutting bail requirements, letting illegal alien criminals into the country, releasing domestic criminals early from jail because of Covid, electing local District Attorneys that won’t prosecute crime, associating themselves with Black Lives Matter and Antifa, defunding police departments, and supporting rhetoric that supports the use of violence for political purposes. It seems that any shooting of a criminal by a police officer is assumed to be murder before any evidence, investigation, or trial is held.

Not surprisingly, legal gun sales are soaring, with most of the surge in buying coming from women and Blacks.

Biden pedaled another lie, that gun manufactures are exempt from lawsuits.

Those that follow news in the firearms industry know that is simply not true. For example, recent lawsuits against Remington helped send one of the oldest American manufacturing companies into bankruptcy.  Firearms companies can be sued for product liability and defective products. What they can’t be sued for is, if they are otherwise acting lawfully, one of their products is used by a customer in the commission of a crime.

That just makes common sense.  Once the gun leaves the factory, how can you hold the manufacturer responsible? That would be tantamount to holding Ford responsible because one of their cars was used in the commission of a crime as opposed to being used for a family vacation. How could Ford know in advance how buyers might use, or misuse their products?

Guns could be used to save a life or to take a life. The decision is in the hands of the operator, the human being.  Inanimate objects can’t act, can’t make moral judgments, and are not responsible for how they are used.

Either the President is badly informed by his advisors, is not aware of what he is saying, or is using the bully pulpit for purposeful lying.

None of the three possibilities leaves much room for confidence.