President Biden on Thursday outlined the actions he had taken in the area of armed violence in a speech that incorrectly described three “loopholes” he wanted to close.
‘When you walk into a store and buy a gun, you have to investigate a background. But you go to a gun show, you can buy what you want and no background checks, ‘he said, repeating a familiar refrain among fans for more gun control. .
It was exaggerated. Licensed firearms dealers must look for potential buyers in a background check system before approving a sale. Private vendors are not required to carry out such background checks, and some sell guns at gun shows. But that does not mean that all dealers at gun shows are private, or that all sales at the shows should undergo a background check. In addition, 16 states and Washington DC have passed laws requiring universal background checks, including on guns.
Although there is little recent data on the subject, a 1999 study by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, found that half to three-quarters of sellers were actually licensed at gun shows. In a survey among gun owners published in the 2017 Annals of Internal Medicine, it was found that 22 percent of firearms purchased at gun shows do not contain a background check.
Mr. Biden also ignored important contexts when describing the so-called Charleston gap.
“If the FBI did not do the background within three days – there is a process – if it was not done within three days, according to the gap in Charleston, you should buy the gun,” he said. “They bought the gun and killed a hell of a lot of innocent people who invited him to pray with them.”
If a background check is not completed within three business days, a firearms vendor may proceed with the sale.
In 2015, Dylann S. Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine black church members at a church in Charleston, bought a firearm two months before the shooting. The purchase was allowed to continue after the FBI did not explicitly block the sale within three days.
While Mr. Rob a month before he bought the gun, pleaded guilty to a drug offense, the FBI prevented the FBI from seeing the recording in a timely manner and blocked the purchase of the weapon.
However, the office still had the power to deny a purchase and then refer the matter to ATF agents to pick up the gun, something it did not do in the case of Mr. Did not rob. In 2015, the FBI made 3,648 references to the retrieval.
In addition, Mr. Biden falsely claims that gun manufacturing is the “only industry in America, a billion-dollar industry, that cannot be sued.”
Congress passed a law in 2005 banning litigation against firearms manufacturers “because of the damage caused solely by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others as the product functions as intended and intended.” But it can still be subject to other types of litigation – for example, due to warranty breaches or if a manufacturer or trader sells a gun knowing that it would be used in a crime.
The gun industry is also not the only industry that has special protection against lawsuits. Technology companies, for example, also enjoy a legal shield, known as Article 230, which protects websites from liability for content created by their users.