Do Universal Background Checks Work?
Now that all 125 Democrats who have decided to run
against Sleazy Don in 2020 have announced their support of universal background
checks (UBC), I think it’s finally
time to ask what would happen to gun violence rates if everyone in America had
to undergo a background check every time they either received or gave away a
gun. After all, why bother to go through the whole hassle of a big legislative
fight unless we can show that the UCB
would make a difference, right? So here goes.
There are currently 11 states which require UCB: CA,
CO, CT, DE, NV, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA. Together these states currently count a
total population slightly under 95 million, of whom 57 million live in
California and New York. Some of these states, like New York and New Jersey, have
for a long time required UCB for
handgun purchases, others just implemented UCB
in the last several years. But if we take these states in the aggregate and
compare gun-violence rates between 2014 and 2017 (the latest year for CDC data) we get a pretty representative picture of the impact of
universal UBC in these 11 states.
The picture looks like this. In 2014, these states had an aggregate
gun-violence rate of 7.4; i.e., for every hundred thousand residents, there
were 7.4 intentional fatal gun injuries: homicide, suicide and individuals shot
by cops. In 2017, the rate was 7.8. The national rates were significantly higher
– 10.31 and 11.96. Obviously, the
increase in national gun-violence rates would have been higher if we only
looked at states that don’t have UCB.
Louisiana, for example, has jumped from 18.71 to
20.09. Alabama has gone up from 16.05 to
22.30. Alaska, 18.46 to 22.98. Montana, 16.47, 22.85. In states like Montana and Alaska, the
increase is driven by gun suicides, in Alabama and Louisiana it’s homicide. One
could therefore argue that while UCB
has not driven down the gun-violence rates, perhaps it has kept the increase
from being larger than it otherwise
might be.
You can argue all you want one way or the other, but
folks, let me break it to you gently, okay?
Until and unless we develop a system that allows us to analyze not only
the geography of gun violence, but the circumstances which result in guns
getting into the hands of the 145,146 individuals who committed intentional
fatal gun injuries between 2014 and 2017, the correlation between gun violence
rates and presence or absence of UCB doesn’t explain anything at all.
We have endless studies which show that gun violence which occurs in UCB states results from guns brought into those states from other
states where UCB doesn’t exist. But
there is not one, single study which has been done or could be done which shows
how those guns got from State A to State B.
Are these guns stolen? Are these guns trafficked after a straw sale? We
don’t know. We also have no idea how many guns would continue to float around
even if UCB became law of the land.
Know why UCB
is always promoted as the first, legislative response to gun violence if the
2020 election results give the blue team the upper hand? Because survey after
survey indicates that all those meanies who own all those guns are also in
favor of UCB. Maybe I’m just a little
bit old fashioned, maybe my advocacy experiences reflect what happened during
the Viet Nam war. But I didn’t believe then and I don’t believe now that
advocacy should rest on what public opinion says. I always thought that
advocacy should set the terms of debate, not be based on what the debaters say.
The only way we will make a significant response to gun
violence is to create a national gun registry so that we will be able to track
the ownership and use of every gun. Oh my God! We can’t do that – it’s a
violation of the 2nd Amendment!
No it’s not.
