Do Gun Shows Have To Do Background Checks

Joe Biden:"You go to a gun evidence, you can buy whatever you want, and no background check."

PolitiFact's ruling:Mostly False

Here's why: In a Rose Garden event, President Joe Biden appear several deportment his administration will have to address what he called an "epidemic" of gun violence.

Biden repeated his phone call for Congress to laissez passer legislation to expand groundwork checks. The House voted largely along party lines to pass a pair of background cheque bills this yr, simply they haven't moved forward in the Senate.

"These bills, ane, crave background checks for anyone purchasing a gun at a gun prove or an online auction," Biden said at the April eight result. "Most people don't know it, you walk into a store and you lot buy a gun, yous have a background bank check. Merely you go to a gun bear witness, you tin buy whatsoever you desire, and no background check."

When it comes to groundwork checks for gun purchases, what matters is who sells the guns, non where the guns are sold — and when a federally licensed seller is a vendor at a gun show, they have to run a background check just as they would if they were back at a bricks-and-mortar gun store.

The White House told PolitiFact that Biden wasn't suggesting that every gun transaction at a gun show would take place without a background check. Instead, he meant that sales without background checks could occur in some cases.

However, that's not what he said.

What the laws say about sales at gun shows

Advocates for stricter gun control measures oftentimes talk about the "gun show loophole," though some observers say the term is a misnomer. The phrase itself doesn't explain who is and isn't required to run background checks at gun shows.

Federal police force requires that people in the business organization of dealing in firearms exist licensed by the federal government.

Specifically, the law says that a license is required if "a person who devotes fourth dimension, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms every bit a regular course of trade or business concern with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms."

The constabulary specifically rules out a required license if a person "makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms."

This can sometimes exist a fuzzy distinction, but information technology means many sellers of guns do demand to have a license.

"Every federally licensed retailer, whether they are selling a gun at a brick and mortar store, a  gun show or the sale starts online," must complete a signed background check course from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and go approval from the FBI'due south National Instant Criminal Background Cheque system, said Marker Oliva, a spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Gun shows can include either licensed dealers or private sellers. And so at a gun show, the licensed sellers need to run a background check on buyers, and the non-licensed sellers don't.

So Biden's blanket statement that if y'all go to a gun show, you can avoid a groundwork cheque, is wrong. It depends on who you buy from.

It's also worth noting something that Biden's argument ignores: A number of states have implemented additional background cheque requirements that cover at least some individual sales. United states include some of the nation'due south most populous, including California, New York and Illinois.

These states' specific laws vary, merely at least in the states with the strictest boosted requirements, y'all volition take to pass a background check for whatsoever gun you buy at a gun prove, contrary to what Biden said.

How common are licensed sellers at gun shows?

How common is it for licensed sellers to gear up shop at gun shows? The bachelor data is former and of uncertain accurateness, but what data we take shows that gun show vendors are often licensed sellers.

Professors at Northeastern and Harvard universities conducted a gun survey in 2015 and found that 22% of gun owners who reported obtaining their most recent firearm within the previous two years reported doing then without a groundwork check. For firearms purchased privately, including sales between individuals in person, online or at gun shows, fifty% were obtained without a background cheque.

Jay Corzine, a sociologist at the University of Central Florida who specializes in gun research, said that observations that he and his wife, swain University of Central Florida sociologist Lin Huff-Corzine, take made in Florida in recent years advise that licensed dealers have a "asymmetric amount of the stock" for sale at shows, bookkeeping for roughly three-fourths of sales.

Our ruling

Biden said, "You get to a gun bear witness, you can buy any y'all want, and no background check."

This is overstated. If y'all go to a gun show and buy a firearm from a federally licensed seller, you will have to pass a background check, merely equally if yous went to a bricks-and-mortar gun shop. Yous would but escape a groundwork bank check at a gun testify if you bought from a seller who isn't federally licensed.

While the data is incomplete, federally licensed sellers have been found to make upwardly a substantial share, and peradventure a majority, of gun bear witness vendors.

We rate Biden's statement More often than not False.

Sources

White House, President Biden's remarks on gun violence, Apr 8, 2021

White House, FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Initial Actions to Address the Gun Violence Public Health Epidemic, April viii, 2021

Rev.com, Transcript of President Joe Biden, Apr viii, 2021

Giffords, Gun show background checks, Accessed April viii, 2021

Everytown, Unchecked: An Investigation of the Online Firearm Market, Feb. 1, 2021

Everytown, Background Checks on All Gun Sales, Accessed Apr 8, 2021

Matthew Miller, Lisa Hepburn & Deborah Azrael, Firearm Acquisition Without Background Checks, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017

Bureau of Justice Statistics, Source And Use Of Firearms Involved In Crimes: Survey Of Prison Inmates, 2016

Agency of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, "Most Frequently Asked Firearms Questions and Answers," accessed April 8, 2021

PolitiFact, PolitiFact Sheet: 3 things to know about the 'gun show loophole' Jan. seven, 2016

PolitiFact, Bernie Sanders repeats false claim nigh gun sales without background checks, Feb. twenty, 2018

PolitiFact Florida, How often are guns sold without background checks? March 16, 2017

PolitiFact Virginia, McAuliffe says xl percent of U.S. gun sales escape background checks, Nov. 2, 2015

White House, Statement to PolitiFact, April viii, 2021

Interview with Mark Oliva, spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Apr viii, 2021

Interview with Jay Corzine, sociologist at the University of Fundamental Florida, Apr 8, 2021

Do Gun Shows Have To Do Background Checks,

Source: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/04/09/gun-policy-address-joe-biden-exaggerates-background-check-gun-show/7156770002/

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