This is typified, in my opinion, by your post, which is not only glib and jokey on the subject of killing and death but seems to be cut and pasted from lobby group material.

If 23,000 gun control laws have failed to turn criminals into law abiding citizens, enacting one or one thousand more gun control laws will not change criminal behavior either. Anyone who believes otherwise is in serious denial and probably should be kept away from sharp objects.

The good news is that a study of police reports show that an armed victim can successfully stop their attacker from killing them. Several well placed shots to his head or heart (good gun control) will not only stop the immediate threat, but may permanently end the criminal’s career also.

So as the criminal population shrinks because of lead consumption, the number of violent attacks these criminals can attempt upon citizens will also be reduced.

Unless you have been in a coma for six months, you should know that it is lawful in Wisconsin to openly carry a gun for self defense (some restrictions apply). Criminals do not like that because when victims shoot them, it makes their job more difficult.

People who are truly against violence, carry guns.

CA is an interesting study in gun ownership because we have some of the strictest laws in the country including long wait periods and very strict regulations regarding the types of guns and ammo that can be purchased (which, as a gun owner I fully support). In many gun blogs and literature, CA is referred to as Cantafornia because of our restrictions.

The restrictions do make legal gun ownership very expensive, thus the increase in gun purchases this year before the ballistic fingerprinting law increases the cost even more.

I’m not going to argue the effectiveness of ballistic fingerprinting here, but I do think, as a sociologist, that the effects of shows such as CSI on public policy are very interesting when you look how state (such as Maryland, New York, and now CA) are attempting to implement technologies on TV without fully understanding the time, cost, impact, and effectiveness of those technologies. Also, I’ve heard anecdotally, about how these shows have raised the expectations regarding the ability of the police and forensic labs, to the dismay of prosecutors who now have to address how science doesn’t work as fast in real life as it does on TV.

In CA, there was a run on ammunition after the election, which triggered a feedback loop in which all of us tried to get as much ammunition as possible due to its scarcity. I can tell you from personal experience that where I live a store is out of ammunition on the day that they receive their shipment and this has been going on for some time.

The run on ammunition has been exacerbated in CA by a proposed 50 bullet purchase limit (per month I believe) and AB 962, which is a current proposal to require fingerprinting upon ammunition purchase (recording ammunition purchases has been tried by the federal gov, and by the city of Pasadena and been shown not to work as a law enforcement tool in both settings).

Just to give you a hint at why someone like myself would need to participate in the “hoarding,” when we go to the range, my shooting partner and I usually shoot, at minimum, 200 rounds. This may seem like a lot, but keep in mind that we are two people practicing target shooting (accuracy) and with a magazine of about 10 bullets (the maximum magazine capacity in CA), we have the practice of shooting two magazines so that’s 5 actual practice rounds of shooting for each of us.

It’s not white supremacist groups preparing for a race war, in the Bay Area, many of us in CA are racial minorities (the shooting range where I go seems to be staffed mostly by Filipinos) we’re “hoarding,” but for very CA specific reasons.

Another point I would like to make, is that, looking at the graph, since the 2003/04 period, background checks have been increasing exponentially. 2007/08 is the one time period that seems out of place with growth smaller than would be predicted by the trend of the years before this. It would be just as interesting, in my mind, to find out why check were so low that year.

On the other hand, the constitution clearly grants me the right to have cyanide-tipped armor-piercing bullets to defend my mountain blockade from ATF agents, so we have to give weight to that perspective as well…

The issue, I think, is not “liberals taking away guns” in general, but liberals taking away certain specific very popular guns, like the good old AR-15. In 1994, the mis-named “assault weapons ban” made lots of guns illegal. Thankfully, it sunsetted in 2004, but the people who pushed the ban in the first place are still hard at work, and if there’s one lesson gun-rights advocates have learned, it’s that complacency will be rewarded with reduced rights.

Background checks should serve as a decent proxy for gun sales,

Agree, in general, but here is some more info.

keeping in mind that not everyone who requests a check will eventually purchase a gun,

This is technically true, but I think it might be based on a misunderstanding about how the NICS background check system typically works. In states like Georgia, without a mandatory waiting period (the majority of states), the background check occurs at the time of purchase. The dealer makes a phone call, gives your identifying information, and in most cases gets an instant answer. At that point, you purchase the gun and away you go. The idea that someone would “request a background check” and then not purchase a gun seems questionable to me, because it is the act of attempting to purchase a gun that triggers the background check.

not everyone who gets a gun bothers to go through legal channels and get a background check,

There are many legal channels for buying a gun without a background check. Only gun dealers are required to perform background checks. In most states, non-dealers can sell or give away guns just like they can sell any other possession. No background check is required for so-called private-party sales. There are limits on the number of guns a person can sell before they become a de facto dealer.

A few states amend the federal requirements by requiring all gun sales to go through a dealer, who typically charges a small fee for the service.

and people who get a background check might then buy multiple guns.

Also, in states who issue concealed-carry permits, and whose permit requirements meet federal minimum standards, people who have a permit can buy firearms without a background check. The thinking is that the federal minimum standards mean that a permit-holder has already been vetted to a much higher degree than the NICS check system does, and at that point, NICS is redundant. This serves as an incentive for states to meet the federal recommended standards for carry permits.