Are there any other private transactions between individuals that are required to go through such a check?
The anti gunners, and hence the media, claim 40% of guns are sold without background checks. Anyone know where they ginned up that number. Seems extraordinarily high to me.
I believe it's a statistic widely cited by the Brady Campaign, so of course it's highly scientific and unbiased.
We've been running an informal poll at http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=511888
and after 74 responses, the mathematical weighted average is 23.5%, and that among those of us who are much more familiar with firearms and firearms transactions than the average US citizen. The average in the general population is probably much lower.