Arrests Increase in Virginia for Prohibited Persons Attempting to Buy Firearms

The Times Dispatch has the story here.

In 2011, the first year Virginia State Police began tracking gun show transactions, 10.6 percent of the people denied permission to buy firearms were charged with an offense related to being someone legally prohibited from possessing a firearm. That proportion rose to 12.4 percent in 2012 and more than doubled to 27 percent last year.

The State Police noted that not all people denied correspond to a previous crime that makes them a prohibited persons.

Some misunderstand what they are required to disclose on the background check form or unknowingly provide false information, others don’t satisfy identification requirements, and a few are accidentally flagged as being prohibited from buying a gun, among various reasons.

Not suprisingly, when you look at the actual number of denials, the number is quite small compared to the number of transactions.

The number of denials rose slightly from 359 in 2011 to 380 in 2012, but fell sharply to 263 last year.

And when you look at the number os people actually charged, it confirms what the U.S. Department of Justice research arm, the National Institute of Justice found, that very few criminals attempt to get their firearms at gun shows.

Despite last year’s drop in denials, the number of arrests at gun shows continued to climb steadily, from 38 in 2011, to 47 in 2012 to 71 last year.

Thomas R. Baker, a criminologist and an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, who did an intensive study on the number of firearm sales over the last six years and crime rates over the same period, believes that the drop in denials can be attributed to the repeal of "one gun-a-month" because people who attempted to puchase a second handgun before the expiration of the 30 days since their last purchase were listed as denials.  Handgun rationing was repealed in 2012.

He noted that between 2000 and 2012, rejections based on attempts to purchase more than one handgun per month among all commercial venues (including gun stores and gun shows) was the most common source of denial during that period, larger than even denials for prior felony convictions.

While Baker tries to make the case that the numbers should lead everyone to support so-called "universal background checks" the real take away should be when the law is enforced, people who should not be purchasing firearms will be stopped, as they have been increasingly in Virginia.

Is There A McAuliffe Effect on Gun Sales in Virginia?

The Roanoke Times reported this morning that firearm transactions set a record in Virginia on "Black Friday."

Gun transactions in Virginia totaled 3,902 on Black Friday, a 1.2 percent increase over the previous record of 3,856 transactions on the same day in 2012, according to the latest Virginia State Police figures of mandatory criminal-background checks of gun buyers.

This bucks national results for Black Friday 2013 which the Washington Times reported were slightly lower than last year, though still the sixth highest in history.  Virginia is on pace to set a record for the number of background checks for the entire year as well. The state police only keeps track of the number of background checks.  Actual sales could be higher. If someone is purchasing more that one firearm, only one background check is required.

What is driving the continued record numbers in Virginia? Thomas Baker, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government Affairs who did a study of Virginia firearm sales last year offers this perspective:

Baker said it will be interesting to see if concerns about gun legislation have subsided after the defeat of the national gun legislation proposed this year, and if that “will lead to smaller increases of annual gun sales in years to come.”

However, Baker noted that the election of Democrat Terry McAuliffe as governor — “a staunch advocate for stricter gun controls” — could be a driving force for additional year-end gun sales in Virginia. 

“If McAuliffe proposes any state-level gun legislation, we could see another surge in sales similar to those in response to fears about national gun control legislation,” Baker said.

Baker's research found that in the last six years, total firearm sales in Virginia rose a whopping 101 percent from 2006 to 2012, according to federally licensed gun dealer sales estimates. Data for 2013 are not yet available.

Virginia Gun Sales Increase 100 Percent in Seven Years, Crime Decreases

Yesterday, Fox News picked up this Richmond Times Dispatch article (RTD) that followed up on its article from last year that detailed research by Thomas R. Baker, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.  The RTD asked Professor Baker to look at six years of gun sales and crime data.  What he found was while Virginia's firearm sales had increased by over 70%, crime had decreased by 23%.  In yesterday's article, Baker was able to get the final sales numbers for 2012, and found that since 2006, Virginia's gun sales had increased a whopping 101% while Virginia's crime rate had decreased 28%.

The newspaper recently obtained updated firearm transaction figures and gun crime data for 2012 to compare them with the years originally reviewed by Baker. The new figures show a continuation of a pattern of increased gun sales not contributing to an increase in gun-related crime.

But Baker cautioned against drawing any conclusions that more guns in the hands of Virginians are causing a corresponding drop in gun crime, as some academics and gun-rights supporters have argued.

“To substantiate (that) argument, you would need to eliminate a number of other factors that could potentially explain away the relationship of more guns, less crime in Virginia,” Baker said. “Only if the relationship remained after controlling for additional factors could a researcher be more comfortable making the claim that more guns lead to less crime. But what the data does show is that the ‘more guns, less crime argument’ is certainly possible.”

But he Baker did have this to say:

“It’s a quite interesting trend given the current rhetoric about strengthening gun laws and the presumed effect it would have on violent crimes,” Baker added. “While you can’t conclude from this that tougher laws wouldn’t reduce crime even more, it really makes you question if making it harder for law-abiding people to buy a gun would have any effect on crime.”

This news hit just two days after  New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and a New York Daily News article started a spitting match with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell over Bloomberg's claim that most of the firearms recovered in crimes in his city come from out of state, including Virginia.

Bloomberg railed that 90% of all guns used in city crimes in 2011 came from other states — and that more of them came from Virginia than anywhere else, including the weapon that killed NYPD officer Peter Figoski in December of that year.

McDonnell's spokesperson's response was too cute by half  responding that Virginia’s murder and robbery (rates) are significantly lower than New York City’s then adding:

“We wish the mayor well as he attempts to address these issues within his home state and we hope he won’t hesitate to call on us if our law enforcement agencies can be of assistance in ensuring public safety in New York City,”

This just begged for the Daily News to go fact checking then piled on by contacting criminologists to explain why the comparison between a city and a state are not correct for statistical purposes.

Maybe the Governor's office should have contacted Professor Baker for a response.