Almost three-fifths of guns used in crimes are sold by just 1 percent of gun dealers, who forge relationship with gun traffickers making multiple purchases.

Where did this factoid come from?

The meme comes from a BATFE report on trace data and recovered firearms. The usual misstating of information showing why this data needs to be withheld from groups like the BC and the Mayors.

Good for Obey.

I fear, amongst all the other damage that the Grover Nordquist machine caused over the last few years, was the lasting harm to the 2nd Amendment by turning the NRA (as well as most other non partisan "conservative" groups in DC) into a tool of the Republican party.

Same thing has happened at the Chamber of Commerce and Federation of Independent Businesses. Both are huting now because of it.

NRA should look at voting records first, second and third. If someone votes for guns, they should get the nod and the support.

Almost three-fifths of guns used in crimes are sold by just 1 percent of gun dealers, who forge relationship with gun traffickers making multiple purchases.

1) Not all guns used in crimes are traced; not all traced guns are used in crimes. There is absolutely no empirical evidence anywhere supporting the above assertion. This is simply a self-serving distortion by Brady, Bloomberg, et al. intended to suggest the existence existence of a cadre of unscrupulous dealers responsible for the majority of crimes involving firearms.

2) The concentration of traced guns originating from a small number of dealers is easily explained by the irregular pattern of trace requests across jurisdictions, combined with the fact that a small percentage of dealers generate a large majority of all firearm sales.

3) The assertion that this concentration is associated in some causal manner with some sort of "relationships with gun traffickers making multiple purchases" is entirely the creation of the same sort of paranoid dreams that see the hand of the Illuminati or the Priori of Sion behind most international affairs and monetary policy decisions.

CT is right. For the last 30 or so years, gun control has been an urban (and to a lesser extent suburban) versus rural issue. It has always been more complicated than just GOP versus Dem. I remember when Harold Volkmer (D-MO) walked out on the 2nd Clinton Dem Convention when Sarah Brady was a featured speaker.

Having worked in very large gun stores that sold thousands of guns a year and very, very small gun stores (basically, my basement office) that sold 1 or 2 a year, I'd guess that 3/5ths of ALL guns are sold by 1% of the dealers.

Why didn't the NRA endorse Obey? My impression is that the NRA does focus on the voting record of the candidate, not the party affiliation. It's just gotten harder to find Democrats good on the issue. Hopefully, more will progress in the party, but it seems to me the days of the John Dingells and Harold Volkmers are over.

Don't confuse NRA "support" with NRA "endorsement." NRA "supports" practically all bona fide pro-gun politicos in various ways (sending postcards asking their members to contribute and vote for them, and so on). But an NRA "endorsement" comes with funds and a big, heavy albatross. After the election, NRA wants to be able to say stuff like "Of the 35 candidates we endorsed, 33 were re-elected!" (Sarah Brady plays this same game.) So if the NRA doesn't think you have good odds of winning, they won't waste one of their "endorsements" on you, regardless of how well they actually like your voting record. This is quite possibly what happened to Obey.