No Questions Asked: How Oregon Criminals Shop Online For Guns

PREVENTING DANGEROUS PEOPLE FROM GETTING GUNS

Under federal law, licensed firearms dealers are
required to conduct an instant check on every buyer. The checks take just minutes, and each year millions of lawful gun purchasers complete them without incident. But tens of thousands of prohibited people also attempt to buy guns from dealers, and the system successfully blocks those sales. In Oregon alone, the background check system has blocked more than 30,000 gun sales to prohibited people since 2007, according to an Everytown analysis of FBI data.

However, Oregon state law does not require background checks for guns transferred between anonymous parties in online unlicensed sales. These sales take place with no paperwork and no questions asked, which means they make up an unknowable share of total firearm sales in Oregon. But it is certain the number is significant. National
surveys in the early 1990s and 2000s found that about 40 percent of recent gun buyers obtained their firearms in transfers that would not require a background check. Since 2000, Oregon has required background checks for unlicensed sales at gun shows, but that has done little to plug the loophole in the digital age: unlicensed sellers in Oregon post more gun ads online each week than they sell at gun shows in a full year.

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