12/27/99 -- 2:38 PM Background Checks on Guns Rise for December; Y2K Not [haha] WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of background checks for prospective gun buyers topped 1 million nationwide this month, including a new high of 67,000 checks in one day on Dec. 23, FBI officials said today.

The officials were reluctant to attribute the increase to Y2K terrorism fears, saying the booming economy and the Christmas gift-giving season could have fueled the spike. [not terrorism, idiots, it's the Code! numbskulls]

``We expect a December spike based on Christmas sales,'' said Daniel Wells, acting operations manager for the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check system based in Clarksburg, W.Va. ``It's a bit larger than we expected.''

The 1,045,799 background checks performed by state and federal officials from Dec. 1-26 compares with 871,644 checks during all of December 1998.

Federal officials conducted 162,595 background checks during the third week of December this year, compared with 129,558 during the same week a year ago, Wells said. That increase could be attributed to Y2K scares or the fact that more people have money to spend, he said.

Wells cautioned that December 1998 might not have been a normal month because it was the first month of the nationwide background check system. He said officials would like to see three or four years of figures for comparison purposes.

Since the nationwide system began on Nov. 30, 1998, state and federal officials have conducted 9,823,408 checks, said FBI spokesman Kevin Wilkinson in Washington D.C.

The 67,000 checks conducted on Dec. 23 was a new high, Wilkinson said.

The background-check system, operated by the FBI and state governments, is required by the federal Brady law and replaces the voluntary checks on handgun buyers conducted by state and local police and sheriffs that have been in place since 1993.

-- Boom (bang@pop.boom), December 27, 1999

Answers

NO, NOT NOT NOT NOT Y2K, don't say it.

Over a million rush to buy guns because, because, uh, the Economy! yes the Economy is wonderful so people suddenly lust after guns because because uh, because they, uh, need a new hobby! Right, they have so much money they want to go hurt their ears and shoulders and stand out in the cold shooting at, uh, um, uh, game! Yes, there's not enough meat in the stores so, uh, um, well, targets! Yes, they are bored and want to shoot at targets!

New national craze due to unlimited prosperity!

-- NOT (NO@No.shut.up), December 27, 1999.

If it were not for the likelihood that 911 will go TU, and the possibility that we will face some rioting or looting due to Y2K, I would not own a firearm today.

I do own a firearm (and lots of ammunition for it) with which I practice.

How's that?

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), December 27, 1999.

No, obviously it was for Christmas presents!

-- peace be with you (rat tat tat@boom.bang bang), December 27, 1999.

They won't be able to disarm the people. Impossible at this point.

-- standing army? (constitution@usa.2nd), December 27, 1999.

bear arms or wear chains...

-- (your@choice.now), December 27, 1999.

Just a thought folks, I have a pet dog, that I keep fenced in by two methods,first I have a regular fence, and I have a "radio fence," that is an electrical shock the dog gets when she gets too close to the buried wire around the yard. This is activated by a house current. This is very effective for keeping the dog in the yard. However the first instant the power is off, she shoots out the gate, and we must hunt her down. I Know there are a lot of you out there that have pet dogs of the mean type that is controlled by this method. Here is my point. Should the power go off, bingo, you have a neighborhood full of uncontrolable dogs, which in a lot of cases are very vicious and mean. There are a lot of these "radio fences" in operation. Also there are electrical fences around pastures that contol barn yard stock. So the animal problem could be a very serious problem and a good fire arm with ammo would not be too bad an idea. Just a thought on the subject.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 27, 1999.

We were at our favorite gun 'shoppe' on the 23rd, and it was *quite* busy with lots of folk who were buying/contemplating purchases. The insta-check computer was up and running (something I had wondered about...) and the salesman was on the phone constantly, checking several people on the same call. We know these guys well and they all said they'd never seen anything like it.

Something I did notice was that all of the handguns priced at $500 and below were gone; a week previous, they had a fairly good selection, still. Still had a fairly good selection of the nicer pistols and rifles.

The fellas who run the place said that no one had been 'trading up' for quite a while.

And yep....Mr. Wilferd *surprised* me with a new toy.... : )

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), December 27, 1999.

I stopped by two local (Portland, OR) gun shops Sunday (Dec 26th), and they were PACKED with customers. I doubt this was Christmas shopping. I listened in on some conversations at one store, and I can tell you that many of these customers were novices by the questions they asked and the apprehension they displayed "You mean it's OK if I hold it, it won't go off?", that kind of stuff.

If this is any indication, we as a nation are arming ourselves, and I hope we have the good sense to take a safety/defense course, then support organizations like the NRA and GOA so our rights might endure.

BTW, if there are any Oregonians out there, join OFF (Oregon Firearms Federation), they absolutely take NO S**T from the politicians that attempt to steal our second amendment rights.

http://oregonfirearms.org

-- no (no@no.no), December 27, 1999.

Went with a friend the other day to a local gun store. He wanted to buy a new Mossberg 590, 9 round. His is the Model 500, 5 round. They not only didn't have a 590 in stock, they had sold out of the 500s as well. We went to a large sporting goods store that sold firearm's. They also were sold out of the 500s. Including all 3" 12 ga buckshot ammunition. My friend said, I guess I'll just keep the gun I have. I told him well, if you can't be with the gun you love, love the gun your with. We laughed so hard I thought I was going to.... anyway I guess you had to be there.

-- ~***~ (~***~@earth.ebe), December 27, 1999.

I have a 590...it kicks ass!

-- Can't Say (taking_no_chances@right_now.com), December 27, 1999.

Can't Say So do I, M590A1, G.R. sight's. That's why he want's one so bad. But then again he has enough guns for one person anyway.

-- ~***~ (~***~@earth.ebe), December 27, 1999.

Yeah...Christmas presents, that must be it!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 27, 1999.

14 Little Children are killed by guns each and every day right here in the United States.

Do the math:

14 x 365 = 5,110 DEAD LITTLE CHILDREN

Oh, almost forgot, you get 14 extra this year...it's leap year.

If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got. Isn't it time to do try a different approach???

-- GoldReal (GoldReal@aol.com), December 27, 1999.

*"...this year..." should be "next year".

-- GoldReal (GoldReal@aol.com), December 27, 1999.

GoldReal,

I don't believe your stat is correct. Please provide a link.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), December 27, 1999.

GoldReal- how many "Little Children" (a term that is supposed to evoke a strong EMOTIONAL response, instead of a thinking response) are killed by car accidents each year? I believe the number is much higher than your 14 per day. Should we now ban the use of cars??

How about bath accidents or sickness and disease??

Stupid, idiot anti-gun people.

-- Brent James Bushardt (brentj@webt.com), December 27, 1999.

GoldReal,

I did some research and found that stat on a gun-grabber site (they actually listed 16 "child" firearm deaths per day with no supporting documentation whatsoever).

If you're interested, here are some actual facts on child firearm deaths/accidents and current trends:

**************************

Response to article "Unlocked Guns are an Open Door to Tragedy" by Adrienne Washington, Washington Times, 12/01/98 at C2

"Washington Waaay Off Target"

Dear Washington Times,

I am shocked and saddened to read that Adrienne Washington has bought into the lock-up-your guns alarmist propaganda in her article "unlocked guns are an open door to tragedy."

While I agree that parents should act responsibly to keep dangerous things out of the reach of children, I most emphatically disagree that anything the government can or has done anything to make us safer by further infringing the right to keep and bear arms.

Keep in mind that the government is under no duty to protect you, as court case after court case has held, nor are rapists breaking into your daughter's room likely to obligingly wait while you fumble for keys in the dark.

Like generations of gun-owning Americans, the proper remedy is parental supervision and safety programs such as the NRA's 'Eddie Eagle' program, which teaches kids gun safety.

By now we have learned that Clinton and his supporters seek to make the State the Master -- and not the servant -- of the people by consistently using the phrase 'for the children' to hide yet another means of expanding Big Brother's control over the citizen. This is yet another attempt based on hysterical lies. Here's proof:

The threat to children is far smaller than the alarmists would have you believe. Indeed, the overall rates of accidental gun deaths have declined by 58% since 1968 and are down by 85% since their all-time high in 1904.

These alarmists have been caught time and again dramatically inflating their figures-- which is a nice way of saying that they LIED --- to further their agenda. For instance, gun control advocates have claimed that "[b]etween 1979 and 1991, nearly 50,000 children were killed by firearms."

That was an outright lie.

The actual numbers showed 469 homicides, 188 suicides, 185 accidental gun deaths, and 30 gun deaths of "undetermined intentionality." In other words, the Alarmists inflated their figures by a factor of nearly five.

Far from there being an "epidemic" of firearm accidents, the trend has been toward increasing safety. But that is not what the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), where the Alarmists get their figures, would have you believe.

Recently Congress defunded the NCIPC by $2.6 million for conducting "research" which was in fact anti-gun advocacy.

In 1995, the numbers of accidental deaths in children between the ages of 0 to 14 numbered 200, down 7% from 1994. In 1996, the trend continued downward to 170, without the aid of unconstitutional gunlock laws. The fact that NCIPC only notes 185 gun accidents among children 0-14 suggests that National Safety Council lumped the NCIPC's 30 deaths of "undetermined intentionality" into total gun accidents.

In a nation where approximately 100 million gunowners live in households containing perhaps 170-210 million guns, that reveals that accidental deaths are a mere fraction of a percentage of one percent. A non-epidemic and declining!

Nor are guns anywhere close to being the leading cause of child deaths. A six year study by the Johns Hopkins Injury Prevention Center established the causes of death of children between the ages of 0-14.

Vehicular accidents were the leading single cause of child deaths at 17%, followed by drowning and pedestrian accidents at 13.4% and 12.3% respectively. Fire, aspiration, suffocation and bicycle accidents accounted for 11.8%, 3.7%, 3.5% and 3.4%. "Other" accounted for a whopping 35.3% of child deaths. At the very bottom of causes were firearm deaths at 2.9%. Oddly enough, none of these other, far greater dangers to children are the subject of such fear-stoking campaigns.

Nor can these declining figures for gun deaths be attributed to increased gun laws. In fact, the opposite is true. FBI crime reports for 1997 show that New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore are in the top five of the top six "Murder Capitals" in the USA --- all of which have had long-standing gunbans. (note: NYC, DC and Chicago being de jure, and LA and Baltimore being de facto).

It comes as no surprise that this trend has been repeated in Australia, where guns have now been banned. One year after gun-owners were forced to surrender their personal firearms, homicides are up 3.2%, assaults are up 8.6%, armed-robberies are up 44%.

Let me repeat that -- *Forty-four* percent in a twelve month period.

Being an isolated island nation, Australian versions of Charles Schumer cannot demagogue the issue and blame free states like Florida and Virginia for their skyrocketing victimization of defenseless civilians.

In the Australian state of Victoria, firearms-related homicides are up 300%. Figures over the previous 25 years had shown a steady decrease in firearm-assisted homicides and robberies. Both trends stopped their downward slide and shot up dramatically, now that there was nothing to shoot back with.

In contrast to the top five American gun-banning murder capitols and Australia, the American states that have had the highest growth in gun ownership have in fact had the BIGGEST drops in violent crime rates.

Thirty-one states now have Right-to-Carry (RtC) laws. As states passed RtC reform over the 19 years encompassed by the monumental University of Chicago Lott/Mustard study, the number of multiple- victim public shootings declined by 84%. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90%, injuries by 82%. Violent crime such as murder, rape and aggravated assaults were down in every category of statistics collected wherever the citizen's right to carry concealed arms was recognized.

Indeed, Americans use privately-owned guns 2,500,000 times each year to thwart violent attacks against themselves and their loved ones. Where concealed handgun laws had been in effect for 5 years, murders declined by at least 15%, rapes by 9% and robberies by 11%. Permit holders were found to be extremely law-abiding, and data on accidental deaths and suicides indicate there were no increases.

In fact, studies have shown that you stand a greater chance of being shot by a cop than by a gun-toting civilian: 11% of individuals involved in police shootings were later found to be innocents mistaken for criminals, while only 2% of those in civilian shootings were so misidentified. Moreover, private citizens in urban areas encounter and kill up to three times as many criminals as do law enforcement personnel.

Women also benefited under the relaxed carry laws, but those who behaved passively when they were attacked proved to be 2.5 times more likely to be seriously injured than women who defended themselves with a gun.

Research conducted by Professors James Wright and Peter Rossi, for a landmark study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, points to the armed citizen as possibly the most effective deterrent to crime in the nation.

In conclusion then -- without even addressing the other issues Adrienne Washington's article trench upon - no additional gun laws are necessary. The sky is not falling, but accident rates for children are.

In Liberty,

Richard E. Vaughan, Esq.

[Richard Vaughan is a member of the Florida Bar and a writer on international trade law]

*********************

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), December 27, 1999.

It couldn't have anything to do with -tougher gun control- being at the top of Clinton's "what i plan to accomplish before i leave office' list could it?

-- grannyclampett (don'thave@clue.com), December 27, 1999.

Let's just assume for the sake of argument that you are correct, that 14 children a day are killing by guns. 250,000,000 guns in the US divided by 14 means only ONE out of 17,857,142.85 guns will kill a child on any given day. That's almost one out of every 18 MILLION guns! Heck, any given child is more than twice as likely to WIN THE LOTTERY than get killed by a gun on any given day. Yep, sure sounds like those guns are dangerous to me...NOT!

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), December 27, 1999.

GoldReal-

Privately owned guns save 2 million lives per year. I'll many of those are children.

-- no (no@no.no), December 27, 1999.

I'll many = I'll bet that many

-- no (no@no.no), December 28, 1999.

Ban things that kill children? How about automobiles, drain cleaners, paint, lawnmowers....

Guns cause crime, just like vaginas cause prostitution.

-- Don (slog@hotmail.com), December 28, 1999.