19,592,303 NICS checks for 2012

[GreenStormCloud]

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/20130205_1998_2013_monthly_yearly_totals.pdf

From the bottom of the web site:

These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale.

Further, many of those would be for used guns being sold by an FFL. How many are used and how many are new is guesswork. Even if half are used guns that is still a LOT of new guns entering circulation.

Each of those NICS checks represent at least one person who is putting down money to own a gun. People tend to vote where their money goes. Those folks will almost certainly be solidly committed against gun control and easy to mobilize and energize against gun-control.

[upaloopa]

1. Gee I'm really scared of gunners voting. Most guns

are sold to someone with guns already. Most voters don't own guns. One of those will cancel out the gunner vote and the rest will vote for gun control.
These gunner memes are so f....ing tired they should be put to bed.

[rrneck]

2. How many Democrats own guns?

How many swing voters?

[upaloopa]

3. Ask me a question. Part of the game.

I saw a good reply to this antic. It went like this.
"Interrogate someone else"

[rrneck]

5. So you got nothing.

And now you're busted. And all it took was nine words in two sentences. I should have written a haiku.

[upaloopa]

9. Next insult me or call me a name and

discount what I say. Part of the game.
Who are you doing this for? Someone who you think is reading all this?
Where is your posse to join in the berating of me?
Your game is well known. We've been doing this since the CT shooting and your side is losing.
Geez get a clue will you?
I'm not here to play games with you. I want to try and reduce gun violence. That isn't something to play games about. That is something serious that effects all of society. You're just about your self serving gun rights advocacy.
Why can't you see the futility of all these obfuscation posts?

[rrneck]

11. If you take it that seriously

then you should be prepared to have a serious discussion. The issue at hand is gun ownership and its relationship to the number of NICS checks. Since gun control legislation is a political issue, support for that legislation will depend on the votes of people who will be impacted by it.

How many people who have purchased a firearm using the NICS system are democrats or swing voters?

These little sub threads make for fascinating little narratives, don't you think?

[Lurks Often]

14. "your side is losing"

Have to disagree, The court cases and legislation that is passing is mostly trending pro-gun rights,
certainly there have been some exceptions with NY's SAFE act being the most notable, but there are a number of lawsuits against it and I doubt it will survive the various court challenges.

CT still hasn't passed a law and it is the Democrats who have prevented further gun control from being enacted here in CT. Here in CT the number of pistol permit classes have doubled to keep up with the demand.

Many politicians, both at the state and Federal level, are not willing to sacrifice their political career. They look back to 1994, the only time in history a sitting Speaker of the House was voted out of office and the Republicans taking control of the House for the first time in decades. They look back to 2000 when Al Gore lost his home state of TN and CO, probably due to his anti-gun speeches, either of those states would have given him the election and the FL mess would have been avoided.

Look at the Senate and the lack of enthusiasm there for any really restrictive legislation. The only really vocal proponent I have heard is Diane Feinstein, even Chuck Schumer, a long-time gun control proponent has been relatively quiet.

Look at the record breaking sales and manufacturers that are backlogged a year.

[upaloopa]

15. Next have someone repeat the OP meme

Your not convincing anyone of anything.
I've never seen such an organized attempt to try to stop something already in progress.
You know I could post a hundred replies to some other topic and get ignored. But post to a gun OP and replies are like flies on a fresh pile of dog shit.
Sure is a lot of effort I have to admit.

[Lurks Often]

16. We reply in an attempt to educate you n/t

[upaloopa]

17. This is probably the first time I got a laugh out

of a reply to anything I posted.
Sorry if I am rude here. Your reply certainly seems sincere.
Personally I don't like having people around me armed.
I think the latest Supreme Court rulings are because of right wing judicial activism.
I don't have a problem with anyone having a gun in their home provided they don 't let some one use it too kill innocent people.
I don't like people owning AR-15 type weapons.
I think we should have stricter gun laws like federal registry and federal background checks.
I don't think I am going to change my opinion on this.
I own a gun though it is only a single action .22. I love to look at antique guns and learn their history. I have nothing against hunting so long as it is not in some game preserve. I use to hunt and trap shoot with my dad. I used many types of small arms in Vietnam. I am not a gun grabber. I use to see gun legislation as only feel good laws. I have even said so on this board years back under a different name. The killings at Columbine and those after have changed my mind.
Also the concentrated efforts by gunners to stop gun legislation especially the NRA has made me want to fight back.

[Lurks Often]

18. Some responses

"Personally I don't like having people around me armed." That is your problem, but you don't get to make that decision for others
"I think the latest Supreme Court rulings are because of right wing judicial activism." A moot point, they have ruled and I expect that ruling to stand for a very long time
"I don't have a problem with anyone having a gun in their home provided they don 't let some one use it too kill innocent people." We agree
"I don't like people owning AR-15 type weapons." Semi-automatic rifles have been around for almost 100 years and AR-15's have been in civilian hands since at least 1970.
"I think we should have stricter gun laws like federal registry and federal background checks." We have hundreds of laws against illegal gun use and murder, let's try enforcing them.
"I don't think I am going to change my opinion on this." I know I am not changing my position.

The majority of gun owners oppose further legislation because we firmly believe it will do nothing to lower or stop crime or prevent the next mass shooting. We see criminals committing violent crimes with and without guns sentenced to minimal time in jail.

[upaloopa]

20. Got it thanks

[holdencaufield]

21. "Personally I don't like having people around me armed"

Just out of morbid curiosity -- if they're carrying concealed -- how do you KNOW there are armed people around you? I personally don't like people around me operating motor vehicles while taking Benadryl, which is also legal. But, since nothing short of a tox-screen for every driver all the time within 200 feet of me will determine who is taking cold and flu medicine, I tend not to spend a whole lot of time worrying about it. I won't start a campaign to ban antihistamines because of an overinflated sense of paranoia.

P.S. If this is really something you feel strongly about -- don't join the Army.

[holdencaufield]

22. "I don't like people owning AR-15 type weapons"

I don't like people owning Velvet Elvis' -- they offend my sense of taste. Should I start a petition?

[thucythucy]

27. I posted about this in another thread a day or so ago:

about the seeming trivialization of gun violence by pro-gunners, and the seeming callousness of the RKBA crowd to the trauma it leaves behind. In that case the remark I was objecting to was inadvertent, and the poster deleted that part of his comment after I pointed out how the comment made him come across as dreadfully unfeeling.

My response here is pretty much the same. Likening an AR-15--which was used, let's recall, in the massacre of twenty children and six adults just this past December--to a "Velvet Elvis" is just the sort of remark that paints the RKBA crowd as callous ideologues who are determined to pursue their "passion" for firearms, no matter at what the cost to society. It's the sort of analogy that many people who have actual experience with gun violence--a murder or suicide in their family, let's say--find intensely disturbing, even infuriating.

Analogies are always imperfect, it comes with the terrain. But while reductio ad absurdem arguments may be tempting, there are times when making such an argument is almost bound to be offensive; for instance, likening pretty much anything in current experience to Nazism, the Holocaust, or rape.

So if your intent is to try to convince people that you're a rational and empathetic person making a rational and reasoned point, using this sort of analogy is a definite fail except to those who already support your position.

Just saying.

[Eleanors38]

37. How do you feel about the Sandy Hook murders?

[Lizzie Poppet]

28. When the questions are perfectly valid...

...then dodging them like you did is illuminating.

[av8r1998]

4. Hmmmm.....

roughly 1/2 of American Households own at least 1 firearm.
Of the 1/2 that don't, many of them support RKBA.
(In fairness, some gun owners support gun control measures that don't affect them, which may cancel non-gun owning 2A supporters)

I don't think the numbers are on your side.
In fact, I do believe that if Obama had included gun control in his first term agenda, and/or the GOP candidate wasn't a Blue State governor on who's watch Mass's assault weapons ban was implemented, Obama may have lost.

While the electoral vote was pretty decisive, the popular vote could have easily swung the other way carrying the electoral vote with it.

Many gun owners, unhappy with either choice, stayed home this time.
Many other gun owners, (your's truly) voted for Obama partially because he did NOT impose any additional gun control.

Before anyone asks, if he had try to push a gun control agenda, I would have stayed home.

[ileus]

12. I don't know a voter that doesn't own a firearm

[spin]

24. There's an estimated 80,000,000 gun owners in our nation ...

and when you consider that many of the voting age members of their families also support gun rights, you end up with a POWERFUL voting block.

Since many of these gun owners has a considerable amount of money invested in firearms, they WILL show up at the polls to vote against any politician who they feel might favor laws that would endanger their collection.

Voters who do not own firearms obviously have no money to lose and consequently many are not driven as to vote for a candidate who favors strong gun control.

Democratic governors fear gun reform moment has passed
By JONATHAN MARTIN | 2/28/13 4:52 AM EST

Gun-control advocates hoped the shattering December murder of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Conn., would upend the de facto non-aggression pact on federal gun laws that both political parties have consented to in the last decade. But now that expanded background checks seem to be the only initiative that may pass Congress, the most powerful bloc of gun-control proponents in the country is conceding that the gripping sense of outrage following the Sandy Hook massacre has ebbed.

Democratic governors fault Washington lawmakers for not acting more aggressively but, more strikingly, some even point a finger at Americans themselves for not keeping up the pressure on elected officials.

“I think the public outrage at this has somewhat waned and that makes the consensus harder to achieve,” said Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, adding: “Sadly, after the funerals, for too many of us as Americans, our attention turns to other things and that makes it harder to achieve the consensus, and nothing moves terribly fast in Washington anyway.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/democratic-governors-fear-gun-reform-moment-has-passed-88199.html#ixzz2MjfTi0Pr

[Remmah2]

6. Make that 19,592,304.

I just found a Biden double barrel that is worth picking up.

[Pullo]

7. Not to mention, many of those NICS checks involved the purchase of MULTIPLE firearms

2013 gun sales are going to blow the doors off all previous sales records

[Remmah2]

8. I wonder how many people actually purchase multiple firearms?

I've seen dealers exchange multiple firearms but that's a closed loop.

[av8r1998]

10. At the same time?

Not that many.

But most gun owners that I know own minimum 2.
Not every gun has the same purpose.
(i.e., CCW, HD, BUG, Range/Competition)

[GreenStormCloud]

13. Already off to a strong start.

Jan 2012--1,377,301
Feb 2012--1,749,903

Jan 2013--2,495,440
Feb 2013--2,309,393

That is an increase of 1,677,629 over the same period last year, and last year set an all time record.

[Pullo]

19. And that number would be even higher .....

..... if the supply of new firearms was available to meet the massive demand. Right now, "assault" weapons and semiautos in general are selling faster than they can be manufactured.

[oneshooter]

23. Don't forget the Texas CHL holders

When they buy the NICS is not called.

[GreenStormCloud]

25. Several other states too, but I don't know which ones. N/T

[thucythucy]

26. But then there are articles like this:

Gun Ownership And Gun Culture In Decline
OP-EDFebruary 22, 2013|By MARY SANCHEZ | OP-ED, The Hartford Courant

There's a little-known fact about guns in America, and it's one that the firearms industry and its political allies don't like to dwell on: The rate of gun ownership in America is declining.

This has been the case for decades. Rates peaked way back in the 1970s, the era of disco balls and bell bottoms. In 1977, 54 percent of American households reported owning guns. In 2010, the last time the General Social Survey data was compiled, the percentage had shrunk to 32.

The Violence Policy Center follows such data, as analyzed by the National Opinion Research Center. The center's last report was "A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America."

The trend is expected to continue. It seems counterintuitive, given all the recent headlines about people lining up at gun stores and given the stranglehold the gun lobby has on American politics. It raises all sorts of questions. Who owns guns, who doesn't, and why? For the nation to handle its problems with gun violence effectively, we need to grasp the nitty-gritty realities of gun ownership.

First of all, whatever upticks have been observed in the purchases of guns and ammunition seems to reflect stockpiling by those who were already gun owners. Gun manufacturing increased dramatically between 2007 and 2011, from 3.7 million weapons to 6.1 million being produced. You have to wonder if owning guns, for those who still do, is a bit like buying cellphones. Once you're hooked, only the newest killer version will do, prompting more frequent purchases.

Meanwhile, the declining overall trend in ownership rates is largely explained by the changing demographic composition of America.

Older white men, many of whom grew up with hunting as a part of their lifestyle, are in decline relative to other demographic groups. Younger people are more likely to play soccer than sit in a duck blind or a deer stand.

More and more households are headed by single women, and they are far less likely to have guns than families with a father in the household. So the swelling ranks of single mothers, a topic of much hand-wringing in other regards, may actually help to reduce suicides and accidental gunshot injuries.

But what about all of those news stories of women flocking to shooting ranges, eagerly buying up pink-handled pistols and bedazzled accessories to hold extra clips? The rate of gun ownership among women peaked back in 1982 at about 14 percent. It fluctuates more for women than for other categories of people, but it was just under 10 percent in 2010.

What those news stories about female gun fascination reveal is not so much reality as a gun industry fairy tale. It's marketing. Gun manufacturers, the National Rifle Association, hunting organizations and shooting ranges want to drum up interest in guns that has been slipping away for decades.

It's of a piece with the events known as "zombie shoots," staged target practice encounters designed to lure in younger people who aren't being taken hunting by their parents.

A declining proportion of the American public is getting involved in gun culture — that is, the gun industry's customer base is not growing — and yet business is booming. This should lead us to an alarming conclusion. The marketing of more lethal forms of weaponry and ammunition is how the gun industry has decided to shore up profits. The fierce resistance to bans on assault weapons and large ammo clips, as well as to background checks and any other hurdle put in the way of those who want to arm themselves, is not about defending the Second Amendment. It is about defending a business model — a sick, cynical business model.

$$$

I tried posting a link but for some reason can't get it to work this morning. But if you Google "Declining gun ownership" you get a slew of these.

[benEzra]

29. Thoughts...

(From the article)
This has been the case for decades. Rates peaked way back in the 1970s, the era of disco balls and bell bottoms. In 1977, 54 percent of American households reported owning guns. In 2010, the last time the General Social Survey data was compiled, the percentage had shrunk to 32.

That "decline" is mostly wishful thinking. Gallup says the current self-reported ownership rate per household is 47%, with the biggest increases in ownership in recent years coming from registered Dems and those who lean Dem.



Going back a little further, and looking only at guns stored inside the main residence:



More charty goodness:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx

And the most interesting chart, to me:

(From the article)
Older white men, many of whom grew up with hunting as a part of their lifestyle, are in decline relative to other demographic groups. Younger people are more likely to play soccer than sit in a duck blind or a deer stand.

This confuses gun ownership (which is holding pretty steady) with hunting (which has been in decline for a century). The overwhelming majority of gun owners in the United States are nonhunters. Fewer than 1 in 5 U.S. gun owners is a hunter, for the reasons you describe, but that has almost nothing to do with the broader gun ownership picture.

(From the article)
But what about all of those news stories of women flocking to shooting ranges, eagerly buying up pink-handled pistols and bedazzled accessories to hold extra clips? The rate of gun ownership among women peaked back in 1982 at about 14 percent. It fluctuates more for women than for other categories of people, but it was just under 10 percent in 2010.

Ummm....au contraire.

(From the article)
The marketing of more lethal forms of weaponry and ammunition is how the gun industry has decided to shore up profits. The fierce resistance to bans on assault weapons and large ammo clips, as well as to background checks and any other hurdle put in the way of those who want to arm themselves, is not about defending the Second Amendment. It is about defending a business model — a sick, cynical business model.

Except the trend in gun ownership for more than two decades has been toward smaller calibers and less lethality. The meme that "guns are getting more and more lethal" is abject scaremongering.

Thirty years ago, the defensive long gun of choice was typically a .729 caliber/12-gauge pump shotgun, .45 ACP (11.43x23mm) dominated the pistol world, and the top selling rifle caliber was .30-06 Springfield. Now, that defensive long gun is increasingly likely to be a .223 or 9mm carbine, the top civilian pistol caliber is 9x19mm (.36), and the top selling rifle caliber is the scaled-down .223 Remington. Smaller caliber guns recoil less, offer better reserve capacity, are easier for small-statured people to use, and ammunition is more affordable.

In the last 30 years, there have been huge advances in sighting systems (my own carbine wears a holographic sight that would have been science fiction even 30 years ago), ergonomics (adjustable stocks, quick-adjust slings, better control layout), corrosion resistance, and safety (an AR is a lot less likely to go off from being dropped than your grandfather's .30-30 was), but the idea that NFA Title 1 civilian guns are getting deadlier and deadlier is absolute bunk.

As far as capacity goes, 13 to 17 round pistols and 15+ round rifles have been popular since the 1930's and 1860's, respectively.



That's a Winchester Model 1876, capacity 15+1, a refined version of the 15+1 Henry repeating rifle from circa 1861.

[thucythucy]

30. Interesting data

though I do have to add that after Gallup's performance these last few election cycles I have to wonder about the accuracy.

And I notice that the "gun ownership" by gender chart seems to be in response to being asked "Is there a gun in your household?" Women answer significantly less "yes" than men, but even so "in your household" "in your home" could mean your husband, brother, boyfriend owns the gun.

I think all these statistics are flawed in their own ways, both pro and anti-tighter gun regulation.

Hopefully, now that the tabu against research on guns/gun violence/gun ownership/guns as a public health issue seems to be crumbling, we'll be able to gather some data that will stand up under scrutiny and tell us with more accuracy where things are at.

[gejohnston]

32. there is a good reason for the taboo

one of which, they were not dong actual science.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=112572

IIRC, the proverbial "straw" was the Kellermann "43 times" study that was ripped to shreds by criminologists who critiqued it. What pissed me off was that I had to pay some organization to read a "study" my tax money paid for.

[thucythucy]

33. Well, I get pissed off at my tax dollars

in any way going to "abstinance only" sex education--but I'm not going to ban all sex education on account of that.

It shouldn't be all that difficult to discern junk and agenda driven science and research from the good stuff. Blanket bans on scientific or sociological research are rarely if ever a good idea.

[gejohnston]

34. we agree

that pisses me off too. I'm all for the DoJ hiring guys like Wright and Rossi, but MDs pretending to be criminologists, not so much.
The sociologists, Wright and Rossi, was paid for by the DoJ. DoJ can still hire researchers. The ban isn't actually on research, it bans the CDC from advocacy and lobbying.

[benEzra]

35. Maybe I'm jaded, but I'm not optimistic.

A big reason CDC funding was yanked before was that medical researchers approaching gun ownership from a disease model led to lots of glaring bloopers in metholodogy and peer review. Widespread ignorance of ballistics, ignorance of existing law, intentional conflation of low-risk with high-risk groups, intentional conflation of low-risk and high-risk activities, and so on.

Kellerman et al in JAMA is an often-cited example that has been hashed out ad nauseaum on this forum, or see Trask, Richards, Schwartzbach, and Kurtzke, "Massive orthopedic, vascular, and soft tissue wounds from military type assault weapons: a case report," J Trauma 1995 Mar 38(3):428-31 for a particular pet peeve of mine. That article flatly contradicted decades of peer-reviewed wound ballistics literature on 7.62x39mm, and founded a major conclusion on a glaring math error by claiming that slow AK bullets have higher velocity and kinetic energy than fast hunting bullets. As is often the case, those blunders sailed right through peer review because the "reviewers" were as uninformed as the authors. Even a cursory review of the wound-ballistics literature would have shown them their conclusions were precisely backward, and review of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports murder-by-type-of-weapon data would have undermined the recommendations, but apparently no one even bothered to check either because the paper reinforced the desired meme.

If the shoe were on the other foot, how solid would you consider a journal article on the etiology of a disease if it were written by criminologists, reviewed by criminologists, and published in a criminology journal? Would you consider applying a "criminal justice model" to the etiology of a disease to be a valid basis for policy?

I think CDC research could be good if it were approached with an open mind, but I am skeptical. I hope I am pleasantly surprised.

[thucythucy]

36. That's the strength of the scientific method.

If there are dubious studies, research, claims put forward, the work is subject to rigorous peer review and analysis and will, hopefully, eventually be revealed to be in error.

Given the apparent slip-ups in the past, I would hope this time around folks entering this arena will be more scrupulous.

[Eleanors38]

38. Why "yes'm" and "no ma'm" is practiced by forward-thinking folks to this day.

[ileus]

31. Let's shoot for 40,000,000 in 2013.

We need the new owners and their votes to beat back the regressive forces of darkness.

As 2A progressives we need to band together and push back.