Since most vendors at gun shows are federally licensed dealers, federal, state, and local laws, including the national instant background check, already apply. As for private sales at shows, the background check was never intended to apply to private individuals who sell a gun, whether such swaps occur at a gun show or elsewhere. No, because gun shows are not a serious source for supplying criminals with guns. A mid-1980s survey of convicted felons in 12 state prisons found that fewer than 1 percent obtained guns at gun shows. A 1997 Justice Department study found only 2 percent of the guns used in crimes were obtained from shows, including purchases by so-called straw men.
Criminals usually obtain guns through black-market deals and theft.
Further, none of the recent school shootings involved guns illegally purchased at gun shows. Juvenile offenders in several of the shootings broke into locked cabinets or safes to get their weapons. And in Littleton, Klebold and Harris obtained one gun through an illegal black-market purchase and got the other guns from a girlfriend. She bought the guns at a show, but no background check would have disqualified her purchase. Nor would a proposed three-day waiting period have stopped any of the school shootings.