Close the loophole

Dailypress.com ^ | 26 December, 2008 | Digg

[marktwain]

Earlier this month, the Virginia State Crime Commission danced back from an opportunity to help reduce crime. It declined — let's hope temporarily — to recommend that the General Assembly close the gun-show loophole.

Loophole? Gun-rights advocates never tire of arguing that there's no such thing. There is indeed. Federal and state law require that people buying guns from licensed dealers undergo background checks. It's the front line in the effort to make sure that those whom the state and nation believe shouldn't own guns — convicted felons, the mentally ill, abusive spouses, for example — can't buy them. But at a gun show, any and all of the above can buy a gun — a handgun, a shot gun, an assault rifle. Because vendors who don't have federal licenses are permitted to sell guns at many of the popular gun shows.

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Not fine. So if you're a stalker who has a court restraining order against you, a gun show's the place to go to buy a gun. Or if you have a felony on your record, or a commitment to a psychiatric hospital. At any other legal selling point, the instant background check will foil you. And that's why it's called the gunshow loophole. There are a limited number of ways guns move into the hands of criminals. Some are able to buy them legitimately. Some buy them illegally on the street. Some steal them. Some buy them from licensed dealers — the crooked few — who don't bother enforcing the laws. And some buy them at gun shows. So if there's a way to staunch part of the flow of guns into criminal hands, why not do it?

[marktwain]

Oops! Correction! It is 16 lives per year, not 20!

[marktwain]

“Since no gun show organizer would be willing to incurr the potential criminal liability involved in my example, the effect would be to close all gunshows. As I remember the ‘Lautenburg Amendment’ defined a gun show as any location where three or more gun sales were made. If you ran a flea market and three or more private individuals made private agreements on your premises, whether you were aware of these agreements or not, you would have been operating a ‘gun show’ and would have been under the previsions of the ‘Lautenburg amendment’. You would have been a criminal since you did not post all the required notices and did not ensure that no gun sales agreements took place.”

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Excellent points. If the public understood this, they would see the “gun show loophole” for the fraud that it is.

[nina0113]

The insidious and unending efforts are such that it is worth creating “legacy arsenals” of unregistered guns... today,

Good luck getting an unregistered gun THESE days - nobody I know who has any is selling them. All of ours are "on the books" - BATF is supposed to destroy the 4473's after some time period, but I wouldn't bet a nickel that they actually do.

[xp38]

still waiting..