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Tags: democrats | new | gun study | gao report | online gun sales

Daily Caller: Dems Want New Gun Study After GAO Report

Daily Caller: Dems Want New Gun Study After GAO Report
(George Frey/Getty Images)

By    |   Monday, 15 January 2018 03:24 PM EST

Democrats have asked for a new study with different methodology after a Government Accountability Office report on online gun sales requested by them showed that it is difficult to buy firearms illegally on the internet, The Daily Caller reported on Monday.

"When we send something to GAO, we allow them to do the process that they think makes sense," Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said. "But we do have a disagreement with their methodology, and we're going to go and sit down with them and discuss how to get at the problem."

Schatz stressed that "The way that the GAO analysts did it is, they announced to the sellers, ‘Hey I'd like to buy some guns illegally.' I think the sellers are wise enough to that to decline, so we did not agree with their methodology, but we'll continue to work on this issue."

The GAO report, released earlier this month stated that its investigators tried to illegally purchase firearms and "revealed their status to the sellers as individuals who would ordinarily be banned from buying these weapons legally."

Out of 72 attempts on the Surface Web, the investigators did not manage to purchase a single gun.

However, agents who did not mention to sellers on the Dark Web that they were banned from buying weapons, were able to buy two firearms illegally.

The National Rifle Association responded to the report by saying that this proves that independent studies, as opposed to those paid for by gun control interests, prove that "private sellers advertising online are knowledgeable about the law, conscientious, and self-policing," and that purchasing firearms on the internet are "subject to the same federal laws that apply to any other commercial or private gun sales."

The report also demonstrated that "websites and legitimate sellers were willing to freeze out suspicious actors and cooperate with law enforcement officials to identify and successfully prosecute criminals operating online," according to the NRA.

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Politics
Democrats have asked for a new study with different methodology after a Government Accountability Office report on online gun sales requested by them showed that it is difficult to buy firearms illegally on the internet, The Daily Caller reported on Monday.
democrats, new, gun study, gao report, online gun sales
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2018-24-15
Monday, 15 January 2018 03:24 PM
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