Anti-Gun Myth Busted! Online Gun Sale Investigation Backfires

While gun control groups would have you believe that dangerous prohibited individuals can easily purchase guns online, the facts tell a different story.

Recently, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation of online gun sales unequivocally showed that Americans will not sell firearms online to dangerous prohibited individuals. In seventy-two attempts made over readily accessible internet sites (not on the dark web), agents failed to complete a purchase 100% of the time when the seller knew, or believed, that the buyer was a prohibited person or lived in another state.

The results of this study completely undermine earlier “studies” funded by Michael Bloomberg, which claimed that over sixty percent of private sellers were willing to sell to a prohibited person.

Ironically, this investigation was ordered by some of the most vehemently anti-gun members of congress: Rep. Elijah Cummings (D), Sen. Brian Schatz (D), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). While these legislators were obviously expecting the GAO report to mirror the earlier “studies”, the results clearly show what we have known all along. Online sales are not unregulated; they are subject to the same federal laws applied to any other commercial or private gun sale. Additionally, the report demonstrated that gun owners and private sellers are well educated on firearms laws and self-policing. Fifty-six of the sellers refused to complete a sale once they learned that the buyer was out of state or a prohibited person. In five cases, the forum or website “froze” the buyers’ accounts and stopped the transaction once the purchaser’s prohibited status was revealed, and the remaining eleven cases were not complete because it was determined that the sellers wanted to take purchaser’s money without delivering the firearm.

Though agents were able to purchase firearms on the “dark web”, they were only successful two out of seven times. The “dark web” requires specific software to access it and contains content and sites that have intentionally been concealed.  Given this, the report noted that the “dark web” is “designed to facilitate criminal activity online.”

However, in every case on a readily accessible website, sellers would not deliver a gun to someone they believed was a prohibited person, or lived in another state. The report showed that websites and honest sellers are willing to stop suspicious buyers and work with law enforcement to prosecute criminals.

To read the GAO report, click here.

To read more about the investigation, click here.