It doesn't even try to be even-handed, so ignore the general anti-gun sentiment in the article.  That isn't the issue.  I post this purely as an illustration of the "gun show loophole" that we discussed earlier.

 

The point here is that without breaking any laws, this kid was able to accomplish exactly what current gun laws are meant to prohibit:  easily buy many guns without any background check or record-keeping.

 

If I am planning on committing a crime with a gun, or know that I would not pass a background check, it would be a simple matter for me to swing by the nearest gun show and bypass almost all current gun laws.

 

This is a loophole the size of a Mack truck.

 

Whether you agree with current gun laws or not, we ought to have, as a matter of principle, laws that cannot this easily be dodged.

 

Leave me alone. I'm just exercising my right to bare arms.

 

 

Well , its a good thing they regulate other stuff, like drugs. We wouldn't want people to be able to take $5,000 down to the local corner and buy crack...

 

Oh, wait...

 

I bet the news network then took those weapons to mexico and gave them to drug dealers too...

 

That kind of article is why I dislike the media so much... The push for "more" laws, instead of just enforcing the laws on the books. Maybe if schools quit teaching relative morality, and focused on character and morals, we wouldn't have all these people enacting "survival of the fittest"...

 

And now that we have all these social miscreants, created by the lack of morals, and dismissal of moral law... Now, we want to harness that issue with more gun control... Yeah, that makes sense. Good thing they don't teach logic in schools.

 

Best thing we could do as a society is to arm all citizens. And train them how to use firearms to protect themselves from the nutjobs the schools are putting on the streets daily.

 

At the end of the day, if a criminal wants a gun, he will get a gun, just like if you want drugs, you get them.

 

While enacting more laws just restricts the law abiding citizens and puts them in harms way.

 

Because of the results.

 

How long would it take to buy ten guns through newspaper classifieds?  How much of a paper trail would you leave in the process, and how many buyers would remember you when the cops called later?

 

By going to a gun show, this kid bought ten guns in an hour, with no paper trail and nearly complete anonymity.  That is exactly the scenario current laws are meant to stop.

 

 

 

 

Ah, yes.  Non Sequiteurs 'R' Us.

 

Welcome.

 

 

I think you mean "non sequitur"

 

You might want to bust out the thesaurus when trying witty riposte...

 

 

 

And I think you mean "dictionary"...    :)

 

But yes, I did in fact misspell a Latin word.

 

 

 

Not everybody at the gun show is selling more than ten guns per year, and even if they are, nobody at the gun show is checking.  You don't need an FFL to sell at gun shows, regardless of whether you are legally required to have one.

 

The example in this article is a demonstration of how this is different from sales between individuals - and it is in fact the setting.  Because the setting allows buyers and sellers to do easily what would be difficult or impossible under normal circumstances:  To buy/sell firearms quickly and easily, with no paperwork, anonymously and untraceably, and potentially in large numbers.

 

That is a function of the setting.  And that is why the loophole is commonly referred to as the "gun show loophole" rather than the "sales between individuals loophole."

 

The setting is not "just" the setting.

 

EDIT: The article itself was an abomination, the only part that wasn't biased was that it mentioned that the gunmen bought his gun through a dealer but the state hadn't reported the mental illness aspect.

 

Agreed.  The article is awful.

 

No silly, wrong calibre- that's Long Rifle.  You should know this Mack; from your past posts I know you're pretty familiar with the subejct of small arms.

 

The loophole allows people to get around the requirements imposed by an FFL dealer.  IOW, the exact requirements you think should apply to all firearms transfers.

 

 

Technically, you don't need a permit to carry a handgun unless it is concealed.

Training, training, training and more training. It's all about building up a muscle memory that conditions your physical responses to certian stimulae. the same training that will have a soldier taking aim at a potential threat without thought can be translated to a civilian context, simply so thatas soon as the mind goes into 'threat' mode, the response is to draw a firearm. It's doesn't necessarily mean shooting- that's always an act that includes a bit of conscious consideration separate from the muscle memory that gets the gun on target and simply puts you in a position to use lethal force if it's a necessity.

Anyone who intends to carry in self defense should read Dave Grossman's 'On Combat', simply so they have an appreciation of the psychological and physiological factors that may come into play as soon as their nervous system is escalated into 'potential lethal threat' territory.

 

This is one of my central concerns with many people that do or would like to carry a handgun.  All too often the gun is perceived as a replacement for training, not a tool that requires extra training.

 

That always frightens me.

 

 

I think you guys are misunderstanding what a "loophole" is - I know merc does. A loophole isn't breaking the law, but twisting it in a way not intended.  In this case, the purpose of the private sale exception was to allow individuals to sell their gun to their family or neighbor.  It was never the intent to create a bazaar-type situation where anonymous sales would be commonplace.

 

The whole purpose of federal gun control laws is to track weapon transfers and place some controls on gun ownership.  By using the father-to-son exception at a large show, you avoid the central purpose of the law.  That is the very definition of a loophole.  Nothing illegal is going on here - that's the point.

 

And what does it matter?  It matters lots.  Two reasons:  anonymity and ease of access.  Some scenarios:

 

1.  I plan on committing a crime with a gun.  Maybe a killing, maybe a robbery, maybe just B&E with protection in my pocket.  I could buy a gun from a dealer, from my cousin, from some dealer in the hood, or from a guy in the classifieds (whether paper or online).  My concern in either case is that I may have to leave or fire my weapon, and I want to make sure that it cannot be traced back to me.  If I buy from a dealer, I will be on the record.  Very bad.  If I buy from my cousin, they will track the gun to him.  Besides, my cousin may not have the gun I want.  If I buy from the classifieds, there will be tracks.  Phone calls, emails, etc.  Probably even a face to face meeting.  There will be a connection.  If they track the gun to my seller, chances are pretty good they will have clues pointing in my direction.  Buying from a guy in the hood would mostly solve those problems, but would still leave some tracks, and besides I don't know any gun dealers in the hood, and I am not about to go driving around bad neighborhoods looking for guns.

 

So instead I go to a gun show.  Walk in with cash, walk up a non-FFL seller, purchase a gun, walk out.  There may be a record of me being at the show, but no record of me buying anything.  The seller may or may not remember me, but will have seen me only in a crowd for a few minutes.   With very little effort I have now acquired a gun that is very difficult to trace back to me, with which I can commit my crime.

 

2.  I want to buy a handgun, but I am only 16 years old (which is too young to own a handgun in my jurisdiction).  Dealers won't sell to me, my cousin won't sell to me, I don't have a credit card or checking account, so buying online can be hard, and most sellers want to see some proof of legitimacy before selling.  I can't buy from anybody that wants to meet me.  I also can't have a gun sent to my parents' house.  I also don't want to go to the hood.  So instead I go to a gun show, cash in hand.  Maybe a couple of sellers turn me down, but that's ok - there are 20 more to try.  After an hour of lurking around, I find somebody who thinks I look 18, and I buy a gun.

 

3.  I am a 22-year-old college student, and I want to shoot up the school.  I need a bunch of guns, fast.  The problem is that I have a history of mental problems, and I am pretty sure I won't pass any background checks.  I don't have any cousins with guns, I don't know any dealers in the hood, and it is going to take me at least a couple of weeks to collect my little arsenal through online sources.  I also can't have anything shipped to my dorm room.  So I go to a gun show, cash in hand.  Three hours later, I have a couple of handguns, an assault rifle, and a shotgun.  Good to go.

 

And so forth.   Yes, you can buy a gun from an individual outside a gun show.  But most face-to-face deals are with people you know, which provides some degree of control.  People don't like selling guns to their crazy cousin, or to the neighbor who has been complaining about his cheating wife.  These face-to-face deals are also usually not anonymous, which makes them much less attractive to criminals.

 

Classified ads for guns are becoming less common in print media, and there also you will likely be in a face-to-face scenario, which reduces anonymity.

 

Online sales are also not nearly as anonymous as people think, nor do they always bypass legal requirements.  Most online sellers are dealers, and require full federal compliance.  Ebay doesn't sell guns.  Many individuals that do sell guns require payment by paypal or other verifiable means.  Most websites that host online ads have strict requirements for identification - the last thing they want is to be a hub for anonymous gun transfers.

 

Yes, I am sure you can find anonymous p2p gun sales online - but it will not be nearly as easy as you think.  And, of course, you still have to get the gun, which means shipping or meeting, both of which create tracks.

 

And, of course, all of these means are inconvenient.  It takes a while to find, takes a while to arrange, takes a while to ship.  If you want to create anonymity, it takes even longer - now you need a fake cell phone, swiss bank account, etc.  Real hassle.

 

Or you can just put on your hat and sunglasses, walk over to the nearest gun show, cash 'n carry whatever guns you want with no paperwork and virtually no tracks.

 

It DOES matter. 

 

How to address the issue?  Different (and more complicated) question.

 

 

 

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21103.html - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21103.html

 

But I will say that I am not anti-gun.  I have no idea why I keep getting stuck with that label.  To the contrary, I rather strongly favor the individual right to bear arms.

 

 

(Ok, and I won't cop to "liberal" either.  Different topic.)

 

Pre-apologies:  long post ahead.

 

 

Kayback wrote: No you, and pretty much every anti, anti newspaper and anti reporter misunderstands the loophole. The loophole they talk about does not exist. There is not some magical hole in the law that appears whenever a gunshow is in town. There are different requirements for a FFL and a private citizen to sell weapons.

 

And those different requirements were drafted into the statute with one-off sales in mind, not with gun shows in mind.  Whether people are intentionally trying to circumvent the law, or it just happens by market forces, this is the very definition of a loophole.

 

By bringing large numbers of buyers and sellers together, gun shows change the effect of the private sales exception.  That is what a loophole is.

 

I hate to throw this out, since it bugs me when people do it - but seriously.  I'm a lawyer.  I draft loopholes for a living.  I know one when I see one.  This is a loophole.  If you look up "loophole" in the dictionary, there is a picture of a gun show.

 

 

Like you said it is there to make it easier for a casual seller to pass his weapons off with the minimum of hassle. Family, neighbour, some random dude from the paper, a stranger at a gunshow. It isn't a hole in the law, it IS the law. You can buy weapons without the paperwork any time of the year. It isn't related to gunshows.

 

Again, you are correct, and that is what "loophole" means.  If it were against the law it wouldn't be a loophole, it would just be illegal.  "Loophole" means to comply with the law/contract in a way so as to counteract the purpose of the law/contract, usually by taking advantage of exceptions and/or poor drafting, or perhaps new technology or social shifts.

 

Example:  Let's say that the tax code allows people to retire to the Caymans and stop paying income tax in the US.  Clever lawyers get a hold of this, and suddenly massive insurance companies are based in the Caymans, significantly reducing their US income and income tax.  A rule set up to allow people to retire in peace becomes a perfectly legal means for large companies to avoid income tax.  Perfectly legal, and also a loophole.   (Aactual Cayman loophole is quite a bit more complex - but close enough)

 

This is a loophole.

 

PRIVATE CITIZENS DON'T NEED TO REGISTER FIREARM SALES. It doesn't matter where or when you make the sale. Not going through the central data base doesn't only happen at gunshows. It happens anywhere in the year, anywhere in the state. Stopping this isn't closing a percieved gap in a law relating to gunshows. It is changing the law about the private sales of firearms. They are two different things.

 

Actually, it is both.  There is a very real gap in the law for gun shows.  Correct, gun shows aren't called out - and that's the problem.  The loophole is allowing ANY non-FFL sale to go without paperwork, when at least some of them ought to be subject to the same requirements as FFL dealers.  Does this mean that all private sales must or should be subject to paperwork?  Not necessarily - that is one option, and I kind of like the idea a couple of pages back (tallen?) to make the computer system voluntarily available to all.

 

I  am not suggesting that we need to regulate all firearms sales.  I am pointing to a large hole in our current enforcement mechanism.  We ought to patch up the hole in some fashion, or change the enforcement framework, or something - but it makes no sense to have rules that are this easy to circumvent.

 

Honestly, most gunshows I've been to have a pretty good security setup, generally involving CCTV. Someone is going to notice a punk assed kid walking around trying to buy the weapons underage. Probably more so than in a private sale. You rock up at the guy's house, he doesn't like the look of you, who is he going to tell? Try it at a gunshow and he can tell security, the cops, the other sellers, anything. The other sellers can also see him getting turned down. Not likely when it is at another house. Anyone willing to sell to someone who "Looks 18" is also going to do it outside of a gunshow. And probably sooner, as there is less chance the transaction will be noticed/witnessed.

 

We have had this discussion before - granted my experience is temporally and geographically limited, but my experience with gun shows has been quite different.  I recall a 16-year-old exchange student who bought a Winchester .30/30 at a gun show (he was not an eligible buyer for a bunch of reasons), a guy who was not allowed to own guns by court order who bought a handgun (he had previously been bugging his friends to sell him a gun; they had declined), and a handful of similar incidents.

 

I have never been to a gun show where anybody but the FFL dealers asked for any paperwork of any kind (because they are not required to).  There may have been CCTV at some of the bigger shows, but many shows are hosted at Elks/Rotary-type clubhouses, and they have no security or record-keeping whatsoever.

 

And, taking this article at face value, this kid ran into some opposition with somebody wanting to see ID, but relented when faced with resistance. 

 

The reason I posted this link was that it resonated exactly with my experience at gun shows.  My recollection of shows has been of halls filled with a handful of actual FFL dealers, and a bunch of guys with booths set up just to b/s/t some guns, and who have no intention of checking anybody's record, even if they could.  That exchange student, for instance?  He went to the show specifically to buy a gun because he had discovered it was illegal for him to own one.  His host parents didn't want to sell him one of theirs, so they drove him to the show and helped him pick one out there instead.  Same with DUI/no gun-guy.  He had been turned down at the gun store, and turned down by his buddies, so he went to the gun show.

Same with the guy in his dorm who wants to shoot up the place. You can buy them at a gunshow. Yes you can. He could also drop $1 on a newspaper and spend an afternoon driving around town buying the same guns elsewhere.

 

I don't know of any newspaper where I live that carries classified ads for guns.  So first I have to find such a paper, assuming it exists.  Then I have to be in a town where some volume of guns are for sale, and preferably owned by strangers.  My DUI buddy above (for instance) lived in a small town in a rural area - he could check the classified ads all he wanted, but everybody in town knew not to let him have a gun.  At a minimum he would have to spend a few days touring a few counties to accomplish a multi-gun purchase. 

 

Could it be done?  Maybe.  Would it require drastically more time and effort than the gun show?  Yes. 

I can't comment on your statement that most private sales are to people you know. I don't see why this should be so, otherwise people wouldn't put adds in classifieds or online.

 

Poorly stated by me - I here meant "private" not in the legal, non-FFL sense, but in the face-to-face, one-on-one sense.   You don't randomly walk up to a stranger on the stree and offer to buy his gun.  That type of sale tends to be friends and family.

 

But either way - look for online ads for US gun sales.  There are many.  The first thing you will discover is that most sellers are dealers, not private sellers.  You have to look much harder to find ads for private sellers.  The second thing you will discover is that the websites that host gun ads generally require individual verification for online sales, regardless of whether the seller is FFL.  It is a challenge to buy a gun online without passing a background check - it is very, very difficult to buy a gun online without passing some amount of personal identification/verification check, and you generally can't pay cash.  Online gun sales are not anonymous.  And, of course, you still have to wait for shipping.

 

Is it possible to quickly and anonymously buy a gun online?  Probably - but it sure ain't easy.

 

 

Show me one place where the shooter has bought weapons and started a shooting the same day as buying the weapons.

 

This is more a question of the purpose/effectiveness of waiting periods, which I would rather not get into at this time.  My point here was that the gun show allows you to easily circumvent the waiting period as well as the paperwork requirements.

 

Add to this how many people are actually crazies who want to shoot up places, how many are actually underaged people trying their luck and how many are criminals and compare it to the number of legitimate buyers. Should the majority suffer for the actions of a few?

 

This is getting a bit off topic - my main beef here is that if are going to have a rule, we ought to have a rule that cannot be so easily avoided.  But to answer your question - OF COURSE the majority should suffer for the actions of a few.  That is the function of virtually all laws.  There are questions of degree and weightiness, of course, and the US gun laws may or may not be the correct solution - but that is a different question.

 

Huckabee was my early favorite, but I have been a McCain fan for many years.  Up until Saddleback, I preferred McCain over Obama.  Heck, I initially preferred Giulianai over Obama, but Rudy didn't stick around very long.

 

Romney, not so much - he is the Hillary of the GOP:  he will say anything to get elected.

 

But on the whole, I thought the GOP fielded a much stronger set of candidates than the Democrats this cycle.

 

/back to your regularly scheduled gun control debate

 

 

I am a "that's a complicated question" bear arms.

 

What guns do you own?

 

That is an easy question...

 

That is in fact an easy question.  I own no firearms.

 

 

Indeed.  The discussion has degenerated into "gun control is bad" vs "gun control is good", when both of those are actually non-sense statements.

 

I lay a lot of the blame on the NRA, frankly.  If the NRA had chosen to be a rational group of people that supported intelligent policies they would have a lot more support from the middle.  Instead they have become a bunch of "from my cold dead hands" fools who offer only knee-jerk resistence to any restriction whatsoever.

 

And the rabid anti-gunners have managed to turn their irrationality into public ignorance about firearms (see "automatic" vs "semi-automatic"; and "assault weapon").

 

And the rest of the blame is on the people in the middle who allow themselves to be duped by extremists, and on the politicians who would rather speak in soundbytes than have an intelligent debate on a complex issue.

 

*sigh*

 

 

Figured. Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.

 

My point exactly.  The NRA isn't just a gun-rights organization; it has become a Hannity-esque right-wing group.  I know plenty of ardent second amendment types who wouldn't be caught dead with an NRA membership card.

 

In doing so, they polarize the debate and makes things worse.  If we had a centrist gun group this could be a much more intelligent conversation.

 

 

 

But beyond that, it's the image.  The NRA goes out of its way to paint Democrats as the enemy, for instance.  How can you be a centrist organization when you declare half the country the enemy?  What Democrat-leaning gun owner is going to join this group?  Or even just a smart non-Democrat who realizes that the Democrats are in fact not all evil "gun-grabbers?"

 

And then there is the rhetoric.  Every time I hear "cold dead hands" I cringe.  I would be embarassed to be associated with a group that encourages idiotic statements like that.  On policy matters the NRA may not be the most extreme - but from an image perspective they have taken a position that makes them unacceptable to millions of gun owners.

 

And on policy - I will admit that I don't particularly keep track of where various gun groups stand - didn't the NRA oppose background checks?  I would think that this would be something they would support if they were being rational.

 

 

But there is a difference between solid argument with a layer of soundbytes on top, and simple rabble-rousing.  At some point soundbytes stop being the topping and start being the cake.

 

I don't believe that there is a record of the rest of Patrick Henry's speech, so it is hard to measure "liberty vs death" in context, but yes - if "give me liberty or give me death" is the sum total of your argument, then that is quite sad.

 

On the other hand, if you read the writings of the various Founders, you will discover that they were mostly very rational people, given to proper reasoning and careful logic.  And then they would work in some clever phrases.

 

Compare this to Hannity, for instance, who embodies mindlessly living by slogans.

 

And this is the problem.  I have nothing against slogans, but I do have a lot against encouraging people to not look past the slogan, and encouraging people to feel rather than think.  This is doubly true of a FIREARMS organization.  It truly frightens me when the National RIFLE Association is encouraging its members to make decisions based on emotion rather than reason.

 

THAT is my beef with the NRA.  It is not difficult to find intelligent, rational gun-rights supporters.  But the NRA/ILA has chosen not to feature reason, but to feature slogans.

 

 

As to the majority being punished - now you are officially misinterpreting.  Here is how this exchange has gone:

 

1.  I suggested that some controls on private gun sales might be appropriate.

 

2.  You pointed out that this amounted to punishing many for the sins of the few.

 

3.  I agreed, noting that this is a necessary result of most laws.

 

4.  You say that if that is the case, we should randomly imprison people.

 

5.  Me:  Wha-wha-whaaaaa?

 

We require driver's tests because some people don't teach themselves to drive properly.  This puts a burden on the rest of us.  We require security checks to board airplanes.  This is a pain for us non-terrorists.  We require background checks for the purchase of firearms (sometimes).  This is a hassle for legal gun owners.

 

That is what I am talking about, and it has nothing to do with imprisoning anybody.  When you cast a net to stop bad guys, you invariably inconvenience the innocent.

 

 

 

I won't go so far as to say that the FFL system is useless - clearly it is not - but when there is an easily accessible means for circumvention, the system loses much of its effectiveness.  To the point where, IMO frankly, we ought to consider whether the FFL system is worth keeping at all.  If we are to keep it, we ought to tighten it up.  At a minimum that would mean putting some rules in place for gun shows and similar gatherings, and potentially regulating private gun sales as well (as one might expect, private sale guns are a significant source of crime guns).  But having a bucket with a big hole in it is kind of silly.

 

Whether to fix or scrap FFL is a bit of a different question, and of course involves more than just a yay or nay vote.  Gun control is complicated.  But right now I think we have worked our way into a system that inconveniences the innocent more than the guilty.

 

 

Saying this at a gathering of hardcore 'Merican gun enthusiasts will place your ilfe in immediate danger.  This is exactly what the gun lobby doesn't want.

I don't see why the Goverment thinks I'm ok to own two pistols, but not 3. Goverments gome up with some funny ideas sometimes.

 

And this is part of the reason that they object to the RSA-type arrangement.  The other part being paranoia related to government control in general.