The “private sale” loophole became a leading talking point for gun reform advocates following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. President Barack Obama’s call for congressional action to close the gap led to the ultimately unsuccessful push for the 2013 Manchin-Toomey bill, the most serious bipartisan federal safety legislation in a decade. Fierce debate over how — or why — to do so continued into the 2016 presidential campaign, when the Democratic party platform endorsed “universal background checks” and Republicans remained opposed to any gun regulations, claiming “gun rights.” But as the two sides clashed, the fact at the center of the policy fight itself came under dispute: Just how large is that loophole?

The answer: Smaller than we thought. For nearly two decades, the best estimate was that 40 percent of gun transfers did not involve a background check. But a new, larger study puts that number at only 22 percent. The estimate comes from a new national survey reported in the January issue of The Annals of Internal Medicine.

And, perhaps unexpectedly, the updated figure actually strengthens the case for a national, universal background check law.

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