I am not sure it much matters, because facts are stubborn and unpleasant things to most people, but from p. 6 of Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Firearm Use by Offenders" (2001):
Retail stores and pawn shops are already required to do background checks so a private party requirement does not apply. The 39.2% obtained from illegal sources? How many victims of burglary are going to run a background check on the burglar? How many drug dealers will do so?
The only category that might matter is Family or friend. We all know that many of these are strawman sales. As a Asst. U.S. Attorney explained at a seminar I participated in explained, "Strawman sales are very romantic. The criminal rolls over in the morning, an says, 'Honey, could you buy me a gun?" Of course strawman sales are already a felony. I am sure that at least some of those 39.6% are private party sales that would be subject to a background check, but how many will bother doing so, especially if they are sketchy people selling to another sketchy person.
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation::
Can the firearms criminals purchase illegally on the street come from straw purchases?
According to the ATF, the average "time to recovery" (the time span between the initial purchase of a firearm to the time that it is used in a crime) is more than 11 years. This tells us that criminals typically are using older, recycled firearms, not newer firearms recently purchased from licensed retailers. So, unless you believe that criminals are buying firearms only to use them a decade after the purchase, it is clear that straw purchasing is not a common method for criminals to obtain guns.
I cannot find a BATF report on "time to recovery" to confirm this. Can you?
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