A trio of anti-gun Capitol Hill Democrats is apparently dining on crow after a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study they backed that was supposed to reveal widespread illicit online gun sales did no such thing, with 72 attempted purchases over a 2 ½-year period all failed.
Fox News reported that neither Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) did not “immediately respond” to requests for comment on their study.
The National Rifle Association called the study results “another embarrassment for the gun control lobby.” And the NRA wasn’t finished. Here’s part of the organization’s reaction:
“The legislators were apparently banking on GAO to replicate the results of three earlier ‘studies’ bought and paid for by über anti-gun sugar daddy Michael Bloomberg, beginning with 2011’s ‘Point, Click, Fire.’ Using a similar methodology to the GAO study (responding to online sales ads with the suggestion they couldn’t pass a background check), Bloomberg’s investigators claimed that 62% of private sellers were nevertheless willing to proceed with the sale.
“Two later Bloomberg-backed efforts – one specifically timed to support the Bloomberg-funded ‘universal background check’ initiative campaign in Nevada – claimed to prove that prohibited criminals were posting ‘want-to-buy’ ads for gun. This was supposedly ascertained by comparing information the posters provided with their ads to criminal history records.”
Anti-gunners have long contended that the Internet provided a so-called “loophole” through which criminals and crazy persons could purchase firearms without background checks. But Fox News, quoting the GAO report, said that in the process of 72 attempts to purchase, 56 sellers “refused to complete a transaction once we revealed that either the shipping address was across state lines or that we were prohibited by law from owning firearms.”
“In the other cases,” Fox added, “the investigators’ website was frozen or they encountered suspected scammers.”
But it isn’t just Cummings, Warren and Schatz who may have egg on their faces. This GAO study has broader implications. Contrary to the stereotype of private gun sellers that has been pushed by the gun prohibition lobby, this study suggests they are a rather honest lot. The GAO is not making any recommendations in the report, Fox noted.
The Fox story did report that “On the dark web, GAO agents successfully purchased two guns illegally, as the serial numbers on the weapons were ‘obliterated’ and ‘shipped across state lines.’ But in the attempt to purchase, the GAO agents ‘did not disclose any information indicating they were prohibited from possessing a firearm.’”
Problems with the gun control movement were detailed in a couple of books over the past decade: Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns, followed a couple of years later by Shooting Blanks: Facts Don’t Matter to the Gun Ban Crowd, both published by Merril Press.
