Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

Excess Rights?

Monday, July 13, 2020

Excess Rights?

The anti-gun activism machine is getting desperate. Researchers at UC Davis allege in a new paper that excess” firearm purchases over the last few months may have led a significant increase in gun violence.”

The authors – with at least a bakers dozen advanced degrees and millions of dollars of funding from California taxpayers – claim that an excess number of firearms were purchased this spring. Theyre referring, of course, to the then-record number of Americans who legally purchased firearms to protect themselves and their loved ones.

A natural right, affirmed by the Constitution, cannot be exercised in excess.” The authors dont claim a small excess,” either – they say 2.1 million excess firearms were sold from March through April.

The paper has not been peer-reviewed or published in a journal. It is not designed to identify causation. It cannot identify causation. It does not identify causation. Its important to stress all three realities there, as anti-gun activists are already presenting this unreviewed fantasy as fact.

The data used in this study is from the Gun Violence Archive, a shadowy web scraping operation that only shares its data with certain parties. We have, in the past, identified problems with their coding and those same issues may be at work in this study. We have even identified cases in which the Gun Violence Archive has included non-firearm-related injuries in their tally of injuries.

We cannot verify the data used because the Gun Violence Archive will not grant public access to their full data, but it readily authorizes its use by anti-gun pseudo-scientists. What we can do is try to build the same query the UC Davis team used to measure the association between legal excess” gun purchases and gun violence and then examine the limited results. Those limited results included incidents with these characteristics:

Gang-involved. Drive-by shootings. Targeting rival gang members. Drug deals. Felon in possession of a firearm. Stolen firearm. Motorcycle club fights. Airsoft and pellet guns. Rubber bullets fired by police officers (with no firearms involved).

Do any of those seem like the perpetrators waited in line, filled out state and federal paperwork, presented positive identification, and paid any necessary taxes to acquire their firearms?

Of course not. We know where criminals get their guns because theyve told researchers. Repeatedly.

Again, we cannot verify if those incidents were included in the dataset or what percentage of incidents in the dataset included any of those characteristics because the Gun Violence Archive is not public. We have requested access countless times over several years and have yet to receive a response.

The limited data we could review included at least one incident in which a concealed carry permit holder in the District of Columbia shot a man who threatened him with an illegally carried firearm.

The basic premise of this study – that firearm ownership and violence are connected – is rooted in flawed, disgraced, and ridiculous studies including the very study that led to the prohibition on the use of CDC funding for anti-gun advocacy.

Ignore the fantastical premise. Look past the skewed data and its misuse. Put objections to the determination of excess” aside, for just a moment. Lets take the authors at their word and review their findings.

The excess” is measured in terms of excess” purchase rate, which they created by predicting the rates based on background check data from 2011 through February 2020 – before the pandemic raged across the country.  The two states with the most excess purchases were New Hampshire and Wyoming. Those just happen to be two of the safest states in the Union. But how did they determine what was an excess?

The UC Davis researchers used historical background check data to predict sales in an unprecedented time. Their historical data also does not include Joe Biden, who has promised to give Beto ORourke the authority he craves to take your guns. Their historical data cannot account for the money anti-gun activists will spend to saturate the airwaves and try to buy their candidatesway into office this fall. Oh, and it also does not include a pandemic.

Because this year is unprecedented.

So, no; there has been no excess.” There can be no excess” of Americans lawfully exercising their Constitutional rights.

In reality, the number of firearms sold has generally increased every year, firearms are durable goods that last for years, and yet crime has generally decreased over the same time period. That reality has long been a thorn in the side of anti-gunners. The millions of new gun owners present a new obstacle to anti-gun elitists, and so they produced this desperate attempt to smear law-abiding Americans. 

IN THIS ARTICLE
gun rights
TRENDING NOW
U.S. Senate Forced to Remove Pro-Gun Language from Reconciliation Bill

News  

Friday, June 27, 2025

U.S. Senate Forced to Remove Pro-Gun Language from Reconciliation Bill

Today, the U.S. Senate was forced to remove the pro-gun language that had been previously included in the Reconciliation Bill currently making its way through the chamber. We explained in a previous article that this language would, ...

U.S. Senate Adds Pro-Gun Tax Relief Language Back into Reconciliation Bill

News  

Saturday, June 28, 2025

U.S. Senate Adds Pro-Gun Tax Relief Language Back into Reconciliation Bill

Overnight, the U.S. Senate added pro-gun tax relief language back into the Reconciliation bill after the Senate Parliamentarian struck out an earlier provision.  While this new provision is not as expansive as the language we advocated for which ...

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

News  

Second Amendment  

Thursday, May 22, 2025

U.S. House Passes Reconciliation Bill, Removing Suppressors from the National Firearms Act

Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.1 the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included Section 2 of the Hearing Protection Act, completely removing suppressors from the National Firearms Act (NFA).

U.S. Court of Appeals Backtracks on Adverse Suppressor Ruling

News  

Monday, June 23, 2025

U.S. Court of Appeals Backtracks on Adverse Suppressor Ruling

In a single sentence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit added to the high-profile and consequential national conversation on firearm suppressors.

North Carolina: Update on Gun Bills Moving through the General Assembly

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

North Carolina: Update on Gun Bills Moving through the General Assembly

Recently, House Bill 193 (H193) was reported favorably out of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Rules Committee, with amendments.

Ninth Circuit Strikes Down CA’s One-Gun-A-Month Law

Friday, June 20, 2025

Ninth Circuit Strikes Down CA’s One-Gun-A-Month Law

Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that California’s law prohibiting people from buying more than one firearm in a 30-day period violates the Second Amendment.

News  

Second Amendment  

Friday, June 27, 2025

Joint Statement from Pro-Gun Groups on the Senate Reconciliation Bill

On behalf of millions of NRA members and gun owners, we stand united in calling on Congress to uphold Americans' Second Amendment rights and zero out the NFA's excise tax on suppressors and short-barreled firearms.

Minnesota: Shotgun-Only Hunting Zones Repealed

Friday, June 20, 2025

Minnesota: Shotgun-Only Hunting Zones Repealed

On Monday, June 9th, outside of regular session, the Senate passed the Environment Omnibus bill, removing shotgun-only hunting zones in the state. 

Senate Finance Committee Releases Text of Reconciliation Bill

News  

Monday, June 16, 2025

Senate Finance Committee Releases Text of Reconciliation Bill

Today, the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance released its portion of the Senate version of the Reconciliation Bill. Late last month, the U.S. House passed a version of the Reconciliation Bill which included Section 2 of the ...

Oregon: Omnibus Gun-Control Bill Heads to the Governor's Desk

Friday, June 27, 2025

Oregon: Omnibus Gun-Control Bill Heads to the Governor's Desk

With only two days left in the legislative session, the Oregon legislature has allowed the passage of Senate Bill 243, the gun control omnibus package. SB 243 has been transmitted to Governor Tina Kotek's desk ...

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.