Twenty Years of Brady Law Failure

By Jeff Knox

Gun Barrel Smoke
Twenty Years of Brady Law Failure
FirearmsCoalition.org
FirearmsCoalition.org

Buckeye, AZ –-(Ammoland.com)- The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is touting the 20th anniversary of implementation of the Brady Law, requiring that buyers at gun shops pass a background check before every purchase.

They’re marking the anniversary with a “report” extolling the program’s success and promoting their current target: criminalization of private firearm transfers.

The catch phrase for that campaign is “Finish the job.” The problem is that the job will never be finished.

The Brady’s solution for failed gun control laws is always additional restrictions on guns, and those “steps in the right direction” lead directly to bans, registration, and confiscation – as happened in the UK, Australia, pre-war Germany, the Soviet Union, etc., and as is currently happening in “baby steps” in California, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

The Brady Law is a dismal failure, despite the Brady’s loudly trumpeted claim of 2.1 million firearm purchases blocked over the past 19 years. While that number sounds impressive, it is meaningless in real terms of reducing violent “gun-crime.”

Federal prohibitions on gun ownership are extremely broad. Anyone who has ever been convicted of any felony – violent or not – is prohibited from ever possessing a gun or ammunition – or employing anyone who possesses a gun or ammunition – for life. Same for anyone ever convicted of a violent misdemeanor against a domestic partner – like slapping a cheating boyfriend – even if the incident happened decades ago. The lifelong ban also applies to anyone ever dishonorably discharged from the military. People who legally, under state laws, use medical marijuana or marijuana-based extracts for treatment of pain or side-effects of chemotherapy are also prohibited from guns and ammunition. Legal recreational marijuana users in Colorado and Oregon are also subject to the ban.

Possibly the most egregious category of prohibited persons is those who are labeled “mentally incompetent,” This category includes adults with Down ’s syndrome, victims of Alzheimer’s, and over 100,000 veterans suffering from things like head trauma or PTSD. Many of these people are very competent and functional in most areas, but might have trouble dealing with bank accounts or legal documents. Under current law, it is a federal felony for the father of an adult with Down’s syndrome, or the life-long shooting buddy of an Alzheimer’s patient to take their child or friend to the shooting range for an afternoon of harmless plinking.

With such a broad range of people prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms, it’s no wonder that we still get people applying to purchase a gun who don’t realize they’re prohibited. These people account for about 1% of all background checks submitted. They are not dangerous, but they are legally prohibited from purchasing firearms and their attempts at doing so are effectively blocked by the Brady Law. About 25% of those blocked file appeals challenging their denial, and about 5% win. The other 20%, who obviously, strongly believed that they were not legally prohibited, lost their appeal and the denial was sustained.

To put things in perspective, in 2010, the last year for which we have good numbers, over 6 million applications were filed with NICS. Of those, 72,659 were denied. That seems like a lot, but here are the really significant numbers: Of the 72,659 prohibited persons who illegally attempted to purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer, only 62 were considered worthy of prosecution, and of those only 13 were found guilty.

That means that each year, you and I pay hundreds of millions of dollars to investigate millions of lawful firearm purchases, only to prevent a few thousands of sales to people who federal officers and prosecutors don’t consider dangerous, and ultimately fine or incarcerate a dozen or so criminals.

That doesn’t seem like a very efficient use of resources, does it? And the Department of Justice has requested an additional $100 million for NICS in 2014, and an additional $50 million to help states improve their reporting to NICS.

While the Brady Bunch claims that the Brady Law made a significant impact on “gun-crime” over the past 20 years – and they have a fancy impressive graph to prove it – the reality is that violent crime – both with and without guns – started trending down long before the Brady Law went into effect and the trend continued steadily through the first five years of Brady implementation. After that, murders climbed slightly for the next 7 years before beginning another downward trend. States that already had stricter laws than Brady, experienced statistically identical reductions in violent crime and “gun-crime” as the Brady states. And all of this crime reduction took place at a time when firearm sales and ownership were trending into record territory. A study by researchers Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook – no friends to gun owners – done in 2000 found no correlation between the Brady Law and reductions in crime. Researchers have since apparently stopped looking at the issue since they can’t get the data to match up with their agendas.

Some, even in the gun rights camp, have called for increasing prosecutions for Brady denials and “enforcing the laws already on the books,” but such a plan would only add to the injustice and expense – again without doing anything to reduce crime.

It is interesting that, at a time when certain sectors are calling for reinstatement of voting rights for convicted felons, and arguing that requiring voters to show identification before casting a ballot is an unacceptable burden on people’s right to vote, many of those same people are calling for firearm purchasers – people exercising a right enumerated in the Bill of Rights – should be subject to more stringent proof of identity, deeper background checks, and more stringent restrictions and limitations, even though there is no evidence over the past twenty years that the existing “success” has played any role in public safety.

Criminals will always find a way to be criminals. They steal their guns, get them from friends or relatives who later report the guns as stolen, or buy them from their drug dealer or fence. They don’t get them from gun shops or from law-abiding gun owners in private transactions. It’s past time to reconsider the whole background check idea. It’s time to learn the lesson of the failed twenty-year experiment of the Brady law.

About:
The Firearms Coalition is a loose-knit coalition of individual Second Amendment activists, clubs and civil rights organizations. Founded by Neal Knox in 1984, the organization provides support to grassroots activists in the form of education, analysis of current issues, and with a historical perspective of the gun rights movement. The Firearms Coalition is a project of Neal Knox Associates, Manassas, VA. Visit: www.FirearmsCoalition.org

©2014 The Firearms Coalition, all rights reserved. Reprinting, posting, and distributing permitted with inclusion of this copyright statement. www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

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Trump Fan

Presidential Pardon on Lautenberg and Brady. Nobody can infringe on peoples second amendment civil rights by putting a gun law in front of our constitutional rights. The founding fathers and read it many times. It’s unbelievable how our past leadership allowed this to carry on for many many years and not blowing the whistle towards our constitution civil rights being violated!!!!!!! SHAME ON YOU ANTI GUN of the fruit loops.

Roger

The question is one of whether the “NCIS background check is effective and at what cost?”
At first glance it prevents over 70,000 prohibited individuals from purchasing firearms. Then we find that apparently less than 2 dozen were really a risk.

Chris Rakes

I wonder how many people have died due to the Brady Bunch?

Solitude

Saying that NICS is ineffective because only 1% of applications were denied, and even less were prosecuted, is a poor argument. What number of prohibited people, especially violent felons, don’t try and buy through an FFL because they DO know they’ll get denied. In other words, without NICS criminals could buy from a licensed dealer without worry of being denied the sale. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for NICS. Criminals intent on doing harm with a gun will do so whether they purchased their gun from a licensed dealer or through illegal means. The argument should be centered… Read more »

Brian

Why does no one ever mention Hawaii? No CCW, no nothing, you have to register your gun, give fingerprints and all of this just supports the massive corruption and crime here. The local police are corrupt and violent, despite low crime. They target innocent people for arrests but ignore incredibly heinous crimes depending on things like income and connections. You can be targeted by the police for owning a gun, even after jumping through all the hoops. Depends on how much money you have/out of state connections which would expose them/and if you work for or are related to anyone… Read more »

Rob

Background checks are moot. The government has NO authority to prohibit the right to keep and bear arms to any person. This is evidenced by the SCOTUS case upholding Obamacare. In that case, SCOTUS determined that Commiecare was constitutional, as the power to levy tax granted by the Constitution has no limits or conditions. Yet the Second Amendment’s prohibition against infringement ALSO comes without limits or conditions, yet they delight in applying them however they wish. So which is it? Either we apply whatever revisions we feel to the Constitution and Commiecare is illegal, or we obey the Constitution as… Read more »