One proof of the intellectual vapidity of the anti-gun movement is that some of its most prominent representatives are still trumpeting a claim that has been repeatedly shown to be almost certainly false. Politifact reports that gun-control advocate Mark Kelly referred to 40 percent of guns being sold without a background check during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
As the same publication has made clear in the past, this striking statement is based on an article published in 1997 and based on a 1994 survey. Additionally, questionable experiment design means that this finding seems to have never been accurate in the first place. But that doesn’t stop it from surfacing time and time again when anti-gun pundits are fishing for evidence. Accurate studies have a bothersome tendency to not support their narrative.
