IACP Uses Bogus Numbers to Push for Expanded Background Checks

At yesterday's close to the annual International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Conference, a group known as the National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence held a press conference to push for "expanded background checks."  From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Currently, only buyers who purchase firearms at gun shops are subjected to background checks, while the 40 percent of buyers who purchase their guns privately, including online and at gun shows, are not, said Baltimore Chief Jim Johnson, chairman of the partnership.

Chief Jim Johnson is no stranger to gun control as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year pushing for more gun control.  But these guys need to stop using the discredited talking points of the gun ban lobby. From that piece in the Washington Post that put the lie to the 40%:

Cash purchase from gun, hardware or department store, from pawnshop, or from seller at gun show, flea market or military, or through mail that respondent says “yes” was FFL [federally licensed dealer]: 22 percent 

Add cash purchase from seller at gun show, flea market or military, or though the mail that respondent says “probably was/think so:” 20 percent 

Add cash purchases, trades with family, friends/acquaintance that respondent says are or probably are FFL: 14 percent 

 In other words, rather than being 30 to 40 percent (the original estimate of the range) or “up to 40 percent” (Obama’s words), gun purchases without background checks amounted to 14 to 22 percent. And since the survey sample is so small, that means the results have a survey caveat: plus or minus six percentage points. 

Moreover, as we noted before, the survey was taken in late 1994, eight months after the Brady law went into effect, and the questions were asked about gun purchases in the previous two years. So some of the answers concerned gun purchases that took place in a pre-Brady environment. 

If only the media assembled at yesterday's press event at the Philadelphia Convention Center had pointed out the fallacy of IACP's numbers.