Stores have to follow federal law which requires a background check. The majority of states require nothing for a private sale. Also note, the Feds define a commercial gun seller (who then has to have an FFL and do background checks on all sales) as someone “who makes the majority of their living from gun sales”. If you are making private sales in a state that has no extra requirements, no one knows how much you are making selling guns, so proving that you are a “dealer” and need an FFL is pretty much impossible. You can have a minimum wage job and triple your income selling guns on the side without ever being a licensed dealer in most states. Google “straw purchase” and “cutout” in respect to guns sales.
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That’s all true, but I also know that many people feel more comfortable if the buyer has a CCW, meaning they have a clean record, or at the very least show an ID like a drivers license. People up to no good tend to act squirrly and if you don’t feel good about that, then you walk. Not fool proof, but again, most people looking to buy used guns aren’t criminals.
Of course just like selling a phone or golf clubs on craigslist, you need to exercise caution, and criminals will target you for theft.
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I’m not talking about theft, or even people who worry about the idea of selling a gun to a total stranger. There are plenty of people out there who don’t care who they sell a gun to because it’s not their problem. They take their money an leave. The issue is federal law CREATES the straw purchase paradigm. I would never sell to a private buyer I didn’t know personally, and would record any sale with the state even if it isn’t required. But to deny that there aren’t people out there with the balls to make a living doing straw purchases is to believe in a fairytale. What percentage of guns end up in straw purchases/unrecorded private sales to strangers? We’ll never know because the NRA spends millions ensuring that any kind of system that would track that sort of thing, and do NO harm to responsible law abiding gun owners, never gets implemented.
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles scream and shout. Don’t worry Mike, it’s easier to buy glocks than books! Quit sweating facebook.
I like your energy. Your heart is surely in the right place.
But-
It was GM’s energetic need to do something about the oil embargo in the 70s that gave us the initially “unsafe for highway use” Chevette.
These random chuckleheads including a free gun with every set of costume jewelry cufflinks are not really the problem.
I have thoughts about what the problem is, but nothing really solid, and no motivation to work on it.
My suggestion to you is to direct this frenetic energy of yours at determining what the root problem actually is, and then to work on solving that, rather than wasting it on what is, at most, a tangential symptom of the disease.
Right…you aren’t sure what to do, you only know that it isn’t taking solid actions to reduce the on-line sale of guns, and that the OP should instead concentrate on some amorphous search for the “real problem”… Uhm, nope.
This isn’t an either or sort of thing, fitzmorrispr. One can seek to address the problem of guns in multiple ways.
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The random-seeming bans are a problem for anyone who takes controversial positions on Facebook. I’m mostly aware of it as a problem for pro-vaccine activists. The anti-vaxxers have learned all sorts of tricks for gaming Facebook’s banning mechanism. The pro-vaxxers have had some limited success in learning how to avoid banning, though. Facebook sucks as a place for activism.
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My point was that most sellers are not willy nilly selling to just whoever. That attitude was never present in any of the half dozen groups I belonged too. Like I said, most wanted to see a CCW card. Some did want to meet at an FFL for a transfer. Some would go so far as to do a little Facebook stalking and report people for something as “innocent” as using weed because it precludes them from owning a gun. The groups also created a network where people could leave feed back and vouch for others. Which further aided in keeping everything legal.
Oh absolutely. Many of them buy directly from FFLs, and then resell. Getting a cousin or girlfriend with a clean record is also a common tactic. But these people know what they are doing. Straw purchases are already illegal. They know they are selling to criminals. So they are already breaking at minimum two laws, do you think they will stop if they added a law that private sales have to go through an FFL?
I suppose it would “do no harm” to make private sales go through an FFL. But neither does making me take off my shoes at the air port, or showing my license to buy children’s Sudafed - or any of the others dozens of ridiculous and inconvenient laws that only make the average person’s life a pain in the ass, and does little to nothing to stop criminals.
Goddamn, the law is proven right once again!
(No. 12 complains about spelling, manages to leave out apostrophe in “can’t”)
Nothing like organizing a hate mob to censor free speech and the free market simultaneously! Way to be everything wrong in the world!!!
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Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do it.
Something must be done about terrorist hijacking airplanes. Incredibly invasive body scans are something. Therefore we must do it.
Something must be done about drugs. Sending SWAT teams into suspected drug dealers houses is something. Therefore we must do it.
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Can’t tell if you are kidding or not…
FB’s decision to disallow gun ads on its private platform is free market economics.
Funny how Libertarians are all for free market decisions unless they don’t go their way…
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Thank you for your service.
We can’t do less than we’ve been doing
Did you steal that motto from Congress?
Events is the only part I miss.
Just like “patriots” who love the Constition until it protects something they don’t like.
“Small Government! Keep Government out of of our personal lives! Oh, and ban gay marriage nationwide and make my religion the official religion of government and impose it on everyone in the country. Small Government Rules!!!1!”
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