> sell guns in supermarkets with next to no checks on who owns them

Yea, A, you might be able to get a single shot hunting rifle in a walmart in a rural part of the USA... but it may not work to begin with because it's a cheap piece of crap. You're really not going to buy some eggs, milk, loaf of bread and an AK in the same store in the USA. Stop believing bullshit.

B, Neil Steinberg for the Chicago Sun Times believed the same thing of "no checks". He got denied a gun because he got picked up for beating his wife a few years prior. Then blamed the store for the deny. Which, a gun store clerk/owner is in full legal right to deny service to anyone, even if the customer qualifies. The DEA encourages them to deny and report people if they feel the customer is purchasing a gun for malice... except, Neil beat his wife after drinking too much booze. So the DEA denied him on that one. Lots of people think they can get easily approved for a gun and realize real quick they can't. I've been in gun stores plenty of times to see people apply, wait and get denied.

Just like in countries where guns are illegal, you can buy guns on the black market.

If you actually know cops in the USA, they generally like those with conceal permit licenses. It means they're not prior felons, they don't want to lose their gun or the license, thus don't want to do anything stupid. There are exceptions, just like with anything else. "Sovereign citizens" are a special class of complete stupid. But a majority of legal gun owners have zero interest in doing anything stupid. I already know all of this is unpopular opinion and I'll get lambasted by non-gun owners. Whatever.

As far as I can tell, there's checks on criminal history, but not much else, but I'm happy to be corrected. Furthermore, those checks are dependent on state record being populated to a federal database and there's a suggestion that sometimes things gets missed. Maybe it's inevitable given the structure of policing in America.

You don't have to look far to find massacres committed by legal gun owners in the US: El Paso (2019), Las Vegas (2017), the list goes on. If someone can legally buy a gun and then do this, the checks are insufficient. Contrastingly, there hasn't been a similar event in the UK in my lifetime.

I'm not suggesting all gun owners are lunatics, bear ill will to others or do anything unsafe with their guns. Nonetheless, if someone can legally buy a gun and do anything with it, the arms race with police is inevitable.

As a fellow gun owner, you’re making a lot of big claims but only supplying anecdotes.

> you might be able to get a single shot hunting rifle in a walmart in a rural part of the USA... but it may not work to begin with because it's a cheap piece of crap.

My nearest grocery store in a major city is bi-mart and I can pick up some very nice semi-auto pistols along with my local dairy’s milk

> If you actually know cops in the USA, they generally like those with conceal permit licenses.

The cops I know generally hate conceal permits because it gives holders an inflated sense of their abilities on how and when to use the weapon in a high stress situation

Again, everyone’s got different anecdotes but they don’t make compelling arguments.

You can actually get some pretty quality handguns in some Walmarts, and Fred Meyer for that matter. And yes, background checks are required for most purchases. But not for private purchases or gun shows in most states. Doesn't need to be the "black market".

and yes, I do own 4 handguns, 2 shotguns (for trap), and .30-06 for moose hunting, and have a concealed carry permit.

“ sell guns in supermarkets with next to no checks on who owns them,“

This is false.

One has to pass a federal background check and some states have additional checks and restrictions as well.

They didnt say no checks, they said next to no checks. There actually are relatively few federal restrictions - effectively anyone who is not a criminal can purchase (most) guns legally [0] (some states are more strict, though). Compared to virtually every other country in the world, that is "next to no checks". Many states have no background checks at all for private sales [1], though that wouldn't apply to purchases from a supermarket.

For example, contrast the UK, which in addition to outright banning most firearms such as handguns, requires a "good reason" to issue a firearms permit - and things like self defense are not considered acceptable reasons [2].

[0] https://injury.findlaw.com/product-liability/gun-laws.html

[1] https://consumer.findlaw.com/consumer-transactions/private-g...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_the_Uni...

1. Sells guns in supermarkets. I searched for "Walmart guns" and got picture of guns on shelves on the Walmart website. I also found articles about panic buying ammunition during lockdown, and calls to reduce the range of guns on sale after various massacres.

2. Next to no checks. I looked at comments challenging my assertion and did a quick bit of research, finding articles such as [1] which suggests there are minimal checks that consume very little time. As far as I can tell, the checks are based on whether you've previously committed crimes which ignores whether you're likely to commit a crime with a gun in the future (such as the 2019 El Paso shooting). More alarmingly, I found suggestions that these checks are optional and performed at the discretion of the seller, although I didn't pursue it further to corroborate the claims.

What about the quote was false?

[1] https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/gun-control-facts

Maybe criminals carry and use guns because they know the police have guns?

Let's lower the stakes with what we do control - the police carrying guns.

> Maybe criminals carry and use guns because they know the police have guns?

What? Of course criminals carry guns to threaten and harm other citizens, including other criminals. They aren’t principally concerned with defending themselves against the police.

People carry guns either to impose their will on other people or to avoid having other people's will imposed on themselves. Neither of those motivations go away if the police stop carrying guns.

If the police aren't threatening to shoot you then you don't need a gun to shoot back.

As if the police were the only such threat, and the crime that police are supposed to protect us from isn't significant. Without police, I'd be more inclined to carry and I don't think that would be unusual.

This assumes criminals only carry guns to defend themselves against police shootings, which is obviously and amusingly incorrect.