By Alejandro Serrano, deputy campus news editor

Twenty-two percent of gun owners who reported obtaining their most recent gun in the last two years did so without a criminal history background check, according to the results of a recently published survey by Northeastern and Harvard University.

The national survey shows that gun owners who live in states with private gun sale regulations are more likely to undergo background checks, said Matthew Miller, a Northeastern professor of health sciences and epidemiology who co-led and co-authored the study.

“Although this represents a smaller proportion of gun owners obtaining firearms without background checks than in the past, millions of U.S. adults continue to acquire guns without background checks, especially in states that do not regulate private firearm sales,” the survey read.

The study was conducted in April 2015 using an online survey and 1,613 gun owners participated. The questions were designed to analyze civilian gun ownership by asking participants if their most recent gun acquisition required a background check. In November 2015, a follow-up survey was sent to participants asking when they had acquired their most recent gun.

Similar data had not been collected in recent years. Prior to the survey, the most recent estimates of gun owners and background checks was from the 1990s, Miller said. Particularly a survey which found that 40 percent of gun owners did not undergo a background check.

That estimate was assumed, however, because federal law requires background checks for public gun sales, whereas the 2015 survey directly asked participants if they had undergone a background check, Miller said.

“It is pretty extraordinary that nobody has directly asked gun owners if they undergo background checks,” he said.

Private transactions—such as between two family members—are not federally regulated, but federal law requires background checks for anyone purchasing a gun from any federally-licensed dealer.

States that regulate private gun sales often require background checks, but laws vary by state. Only 11 states have legislation that requires background checks for any firearm purchase, according to the study.

Sophomore psychology major Rose Anderson said she found it interesting that gun regulations vary by state.

“I feel like having a more unified system throughout the whole United States would make it safer and much smoother,” she said.

Robert Kerstens, a third-year behavioral neuroscience and communication studies double major, said that federal law should require a background check for any firearm transaction.

“I think it is certainly disturbing that there are such cracks in the safety net that we have to protect our children from gun violence,” he said. “Background checks should be universal.”

In September 2016, Miller published results of a related study that found 70 million guns had been added to the U.S. private gun stock since 1994. He and the other researchers also found that 14 percent of gun owners own half of the U.S. gun stock—the equivalent of 7.6 million adults or 3 percent of the U.S. adult population.

This type of data is essential to starting discussion about gun policy reform, Miller said to The News at the time.

“These kinds of data are the basic building blocks to knowing about a public health problem to take action,” he said. “You can’t imagine ways to make roads safer without knowing about the cars on the road […] or how roads are constructed.”

Deniel Akselsen, a second-year Northeastern School of Law student, said that while he supports background checks, he did not consider Miller’s findings to be disturbing.

“To me self defense, yeah, that is a basic right and the most efficient way to defend yourself today is a gun obviously,” he said. “So I wouldn’t find that data to be particularly disturbing even though I do think universal background checks are needed.”

Miller said he and his colleagues are in the process of conducting more research on firearms, including gun storage in homes and gun ownership by military veterans.

“We have a lot of stuff that we are working on that we hope will see the light of day in the next year,” he said.

Photo courtesy M&R Glasgow, Creative Commons