The Universal Background Check (UBC) is at face value a simple proposition: that everyone looking to purchase a firearm should need to go through a background check before they can purchase a gun. This proposition is offered for a variety of reasons this document will deconstruct: a statistic that 40% of all firearm sales are done without a background check, this is to imply that, perhaps, a significant portion of “private sales” are to people prohibited from owning weapons. Recently it’s been suggested that violence is much lower in states that have Universal Background Checks. Or sometimes it’s blandly suggested that somehow private sale without background checks are nefarious to society.

Unfortunately, the devil is in the details of the UBC, and this proposition is not going to solve any problems our society is facing with firearms (it will not deter crime, lower violence, or decrease the number of weapons in the hands of undesirables or people prohibited from owning weapons), it will only impact lawful gun owners with an unnecessary burden, and inflate the cost & bureaucracy of government. In addition, the plausible net-positive effects of a UBC are only redundant to existing law.

Here’s some background: the Gun Control Act of 1968 restricts interstate shipments of guns to federally licensed firearm dealers (FFL), who in turn are required to follow laws regulating retail transfers (this means, FFL dealers like a professional gun dealer have to do a background check). Transactions not involving FFLs (not involving professional gun dealers), known as the “secondary market,” or “private sale,” typically do not require recordkeeping and are exempt from the Federal requirement of a waiting period and criminal record check.

Let’s examine the claim that “40% of firearms sales take place today without checks” – the study can be found here: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf – “We conclude that approximately 60 percent of gun acquisitions involved an FFL and hence were subject to Federal regulations on such matters as out-of-State sales, criminal history checks, and recordkeeping. A somewhat higher percentage of handgun acquisitions than long gun acquisitions involved FFLs. The remaining acquisitions, amounting to about 2 million per year, were off-the-books transfers in the secondary market.”

This study was done in 1994, and is outdated in many ways. 1994 was long before the internet revolutionized commerce. Today, it’s fairly simple to order a firearm on the internet and have it delivered to an FFL, those in the market for a used firearm can find a larger selection of firearms on internet auction sites (think ebay for guns), which will require a background check if sent between states.

Importantly, this same study that says 40% of transactions are “private sales” or “secondary market” – 17% of the total are transactions between family members and 12% are transactions between “friends or acquaintances” – meaning that only 11% of all private sale transactions are to potential unfamiliar parties. Using the study’s numbers, this means 220,000 firearms are sold this way annually nationwide. I would assume that the seller offering a firearm to a family member or friend would know if their family member or friend is prohibited from owning a firearm, and would not make that transaction because it is illegal (however, family and friends selling weapons to people prohibited from owning weapons is extremely common and already illegal).

Also of significant importance, the very next paragraph in this same study is titled “thefts” which explains, “About 211,000 handguns and 382,000 long guns were stolen in noncommercial thefts that year, for a total of 593,000 stolen firearms.” This means more guns are STOLEN than SOLD to possible undesirable or prohibited classes of people. The study continues: “32 percent of surveyed felons had stolen their most recently acquired handgun.” Multiple other studies have shown that felons do not have a difficult time acquiring a stolen handgun, and some studies have suggested the felons prefer stolen handguns because of their lower cost.

Although private sales currently do not require a background check, they are still regulated in Oregon (ORS 166.470), and any Oregon seller can easily conduct a background check for a $10.00 fee by calling 1-800-432-5059. ORS 166.470 says you may not intentionally sell, deliver or transfer a firearm to a person you know cannot legally possess a firearm, federal law also requires that the buyer live in the same state. In order to do this, regular buyers and sellers of firearms will require that the buyer have an Oregon ID card and often times require the buyer to have an Oregon Concealed Handgun License (which requires a background check). To protect the liability of the seller, most will require the buyer to sign a Bill of Sale that indicates the buyer is legally allowed to own a weapon. Gun owners have just as much to fear from undesirable and prohibited people having weapons, and often go through extreme lengths to ensure their sold firearms end up with responsible owners. To believe that 40% of all firearm transactions happen in Oregon without regulation or concern is preposterous.

The Oregonian recently stated, “Last year, the Oregon State Police – working through a federal database – conducted nearly 260,000 background checks. About 3,500 – or 1.3 percent of the total – of the proposed purchases were denied, according to Lt. Gregg Hastings, a state police spokesman.” Only a significantly small percentage of prohibited classes of people attempt to purchase firearms in the store. These same people are more likely to steal a firearm, and if they do not steal one, then could attempt to purchase one through a private sale. A UBC will not change this. Through this private sale, the seller could be committing a crime, and certainly the buyer is definitely committing a crime. A UBC law will only make this transaction more illegal than it already is, this is not only redundant, but absurd. Meaning the only thing this will achieve is more government costs to monitor this system.

Some firearms transactions ALWAYS require a background, even in a private sale. These specific weapons are Class III firearms (silenced guns and fully automatic guns). The transaction requires that the buyer contact the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms to pay a tax stamp, the ATF will also conduct a criminal background check. At this time, a transaction with this agency takes over 6 months. Depending upon the conditions imposed by a UBC, this could mean that private transfers of firearms takes months or even years to complete. Keep in mind that MOST of these private transactions are in-between family members like a father to a child.

Let’s back up and ask what’s the point of a Universal Background Check?

I believe the actual purpose of the UBC is much more dangerous than the reasons being offered. A UBC will not provide society any significant benefit, it will only impede the lawful transactions between individuals, while making firearm theft more appealing to criminals. I believe the actual purpose of the UBC is to create a firearm registration database, as this database will be a requirement for a UBC to be effective. I believe this database will be used for the eventual confiscation of firearms from lawful owners. Our government has confiscated guns, look no further than Hurricane Katrina. During the height of that disaster, law abiding citizens had their firearms confiscated by National Guard troops. Those troops then left at night, leaving the law abiding helpless from criminals who concealed their guns. In addition, what happens if this database of gun owners is ever leaked to the public? Criminals will know where every house with large cache of weapons in the state, and criminal will watch those houses for an opportune time to attack. This is as dangerous as the government creating and publishing a list of everyone who keeps large amounts of cash, gold, and silver – it just invites dangerous criminal activity. We have seen time and time again that the state cannot keep a value database like this secured. And, we have seen from our neighbors in Canada what happens when police have access to a gun registry: when they receive a domestic call (for any reason) they respond much more militantly if they know there is a gun in the house, this endangers lawful gun owners . Canada ultimately abandoned their gun registration because it did nothing to reduce crime and the costs of the system exploded out of control.

I have the same imperative as everyone else does to make our society safer and to reduce violence. However, I do not believe that restricting tools is an equitable solution, and I do not believe that any proposal so far offered up would make any of us significantly safer.