<p>Despite the fact that the Las Vegas shooter would have passed any an all background checks, some on the left still think background checks will somehow solve all of our ills in this country. They&#8217;re absolutely convinced that universal background checks will miraculously keep guns out of the hands of not just criminals, but also the man who may someday open fire on an unsuspecting crowd enjoying some music.</p> 
<p>However, what they think will happen and what actually occurs <a href="http://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/353893-background-checks-do-not-diminish-crime-rates-but-can-increase-them" type="external">tends to be rather dissimilar</a>.</p> 
<q> <p>But such expanded background checks wouldn&#8217;t have stopped any of these attacks. Since 2000, all of our mass shooters obtained their weapons without using private transfers. Attacks such as the San Bernardino massacre in California and the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon occurred in states that already have universal background checks. Indeed, mass public shootings have recently occurred in France, Belgium, Norway, Germany and other European countries where these background checks also exist.</p> <p>This hole in their argument is so glaring that even some of the media have noticed it. Last year, ABC News&#8217;s Jon Karl <a href="https://grabien.com/story.php?id=58143&amp;utm_source=cliplist20160620&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=cliplist&amp;utm_content=story58143" type="external">asked</a> Sen. <a href="http://thehill.com/people/christopher-murphy" type="external">Chris Murphy</a> (D-Conn.), &#8220;Why are we focusing on things that have nothing to do with the massacres that we are responding to?&#8221; Murphy responded, &#8220;We can&#8217;t get into the trap in which we are forced to defend our proposals simply because it didn&#8217;t stop the last tragedy.&#8221; But obviously Karl&#8217;s question wasn&#8217;t just limited to the most recent attack.</p> <p>Research looking at U.S. data has consistently found no evidence that any type of background checks reduce rates of violent crime. Michael Bloomberg&#8217;s groups are the source of contrary claims, but they fail to analyze the national data in an academic manner. They compare states with background checks next to those without them. They do not compare states before and after background checks are imposed.</p> </q> 
<p>The fact is that criminals have a pipeline for inexpensive black market guns that require no background checks either, as was <a type="internal">illustrated by CBS in their report on Chicago gun crime</a>. They&#8217;re not looking for private sellers who want the best dollar they can get from a prospective buyer. They want a gun, they want it cheap, and they want it now.</p> 
<p>Let&#8217;s also face the fact that criminals are, by definition, lawbreakers. They&#8217;re not concerned with whatever laws you pass because they&#8217;re already breaking so many, they figure, &#8220;What&#8217;s one more?&#8221;</p> 
<p>Despite claims by the leftists on social media, no one supports another massacre. No one at all.</p> 
<p>However, it doesn&#8217;t make any sense to make proposals that do nothing except inconvenience and burden law-abiding gun buyers who want to follow the law. While I may disagree with Sen. Feinstein&#8217;s bump-fire stock ban proposal, at least that makes some sense in light of what we know from Las Vegas. Universal background checks? Nope. No sense at all.</p> 
<p>Of course, why should anyone be surprised? These are the same people who still think banning guns will somehow ban violence in general while doing nothing about the underlying causes.</p> 
<p>Right now, things are no different except they&#8217;re also trying to ban things that have no bearing on what happened, just because they figure the public will back it at the moment.</p> 
<p>And I&#8217;ve had people wonder why I call these people ghouls.</p>
What Do Background Checks Do To Crime Rates? Not What Some Think