Any VENDOR has to fill out the 4473s and do the background checks.
What this dishonest writer is calling a "vendor" is a private owner who goes to the gun show to sell a personal firearm. That one time sale between private persons is not regulated anywhere, including at gun shows.
The so-called loophole is the right you have to sell your private property to somebody else. Drives the nanny-staters crazy because they want to control ALL the guns.
“Any VENDOR has to fill out the 4473s and do the background checks.”
Not exactly. In my state, Alabama, I’ve been to gun shows were private citizens did function as registered venders. All a ‘vendor’ is, in this state, is someone who rents a stall or both to sell a product. That might include camping gear or any other item. The last gun show I attended had a widow selling off her husbands guns. No background check.
Now, the ATF does ‘patrol’ gun shows and I’m sure that they will check-out any private citizen selling guns as a vendor.
What this article doesn’t say and I’m sure this is the point of your comments is that the ‘Lautenburg Amendment’ that addressed the ‘gun show loophole’ placed restrictions on gun shows that wouldn’t apply to a dealer doing business at his regular place.
For example. Suppose two friends meet at a gun show and in the course of events agree to private gun sale. No money or property changes hands at the gun show as they agree to meet later at another location. Under the ‘Lautenburg Amendment’, these private citizens would have committed a federal gun crime. Not only that but the gun show organizer would have been equally guilty even though he was unaware of the agreement. BTW, under current law, if these two friends met at a gun shop, and made the same agreement, no federal crime would be committed.
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.
The intent of those who want to ‘close the gun show loophole’ is to make all gun sales go through the federal background check.