Brady Gun Violence Prevention Act Analysis

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act is often as known as Brady Bill. It requires federal background checks on firearms purchasers in the United States. However, there is a loophole in this law, the background checks requirement is only applied to licensed sellers and for those private sellers at gun shows or online most states do not require them to do background checks for firearms purchased. This loophole is well-known as gun show loophole and with this loophole, it's easy for prohibited individuals, including criminals, people with dangerously mental illness, juveniles and other dangerous people, to have access to guns. Moreover, the loophole could make more difficulties for law enforcement to trace second-hand firearms that sold by
By closing the gun show loophole, it would prevent firearms fall into prohibited individuals. A survey of state prisoners with gun offense shows that in the total of 13 states, 13% of the prisoners have purchased their guns from a licensed gun store and the rest of the prisoners have purchased their firearms from private sellers who have no license and don't require a background check (Vittes, 2013). If a background check is required for all firearm purchases, the guns are less likely fall into the wrong hands. Starting from 1994, a federal background check is required for all licensed gun sellers and over 3 million people are prohibited from possessing a gun because they have convicted felons or have a dangerously mental illness, and other reasons (Karberg
These researchers estimated that in tragic human terms, the law’s repeal translated into an additional 49 to 68 murders every year. This spike in murders in Missouri only occurred for murders committed with a firearm and was widespread across the state’s counties. In contrast, none of the states bordering Missouri experienced significant increases in their murder rates, and the national murder rate declined during this period by over 5%. Additionally, immediately following the repeal of Missouri’s background check law, there was a twofold increase in the percentage of guns recovered at Missouri crime scenes within two years of their retail sale. After the law was repealed, there was also a sharp increase in the percentage of crime guns recovered by police in Missouri that were originally purchased in that state.
Another state offers a sharp contrast with Missouri. In 1995, Connecticut implemented a permit-to-purchase handgun licensing law that required applicants to pass a background check in order to purchase a handgun from any seller. Cite source. Johns Hopkins Researchers (cite them here) found that Connecticut’s background check law was associated with a 40% reduction in the state’s firearm-related homicide rate. The large drop in homicides