Category Archives: Licensing and Registration

Pondering Permits

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Though it is difficult to ignore the possible unconstitutionality of requiring a permit to exercise an enumerated right, some states require residents to obtain a permit before they can purchase a handgun (or any gun). But do these permits make any difference? Some activist groups say so. Some academic studies say either yes or no. That a minimum of 43% of crime guns come from underground markets would indicate any effect would be marginal. After that… it gets complicated. Takeaways Permit-to-purchase laws have no material effect on gun homicide or suicide rates. The 1993-era anti-crime legislative movement limits pure test cases. A Dearth of Data Permit-to-purchase (PTP) laws have been touted as preventatives for homicides, suicides and gunshot injuries. We can measure the first two, not the last.

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Permit Punditry

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North Carolina is thinking about ending its Jim Crow era law requiring a permit to purchase a handgun. Naturally one side claims that an Armageddon of gun play will follow. The other side is saying “Oh, calm down, you Dixiecrats.” Who is right can be demonstrated with surprising ease. Major Take-Aways Purchase permits do not impede gun violence and might encourage it. Lack of such permits do not increase gun violence. The Purpose and Unspoken Purpose of Handgun Purchase Permits The common justification for purchase permits is so that the local constabulary (typically the county sheriff) can ensure that only non-criminal types can obtain a permit and thus buy a handgun at retail outlets (gun stores today, hardware stores back when many of these laws were originally enacted). Most states went further and disallowed private sales of handguns without a permit, often enforced by also requiring the private sales to … Continue reading →

Going Underground

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If the rest of the world is any indication, Americans shouldn’t be worried about registering firearms or having them confiscated. Nobody takes such laws seriously. While spelunking through a somewhat dated version of the Small Arms Survey, I ran across a master table that assessed how many guns were registered in countries that had firearm registration, and how many guns were held by people without the benefit of such paperwork. The numbers are compelling in a way that would make Hillary Clinton sputter. The Meme and the Meat Depending on which gun registering country you examine, the percent of unregistered guns to registered ones ranges from 1/10th to 150 fold. A large set of European nations have more unregistered guns than those the government deigns to allow (Greece, France, Germany, Belgium). Even Merry Old England has about as many guns off the books as on. Which goes against everything gun … Continue reading →

Missouri Misstep

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Hokum requires a bit of magic. A popular con circulating in the gun control debates is that when the state of Missouri repealed their law requiring a permit to buy a handgun, that homicide shot up. Sadly, nobody told the FBI and the folks there who run the Universal Crime Reporting database. Sadly, too, few reporters have found the online portal to this data, otherwise the meme might never have lived longer than the Bloomberg School of Public Health press release.   So how did this formerly illustrious school pump forth this effluvium when the raw numbers do not support the claim? It all comes down to math. In the press release for the study, they note that they too pulled data from the FBI crime database. But they also note that “the analyses controlled for changes in policing, incarceration, burglaries, unemployment, poverty, and other state laws adopted during the … Continue reading →