THE SO-CALLED "GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE"

For years, those who would abrogate the Second Amendment and eliminate private posession of firearms entirely have been carping about what they call the "gun show loophole".  What loophole?

 

 

It's not a "loophole". It is the permitting of private sales and transfer of firearms between individuals. This is permitted in several states, including Virginia.

 

 

That beautiful blue-steel Smith and Wesson "pre-Model 15" "5-screw" .38 caliber Combat Masterpiece revolver you see me wielding on the masthead was purchased by me at the gun show in Chantilly, Virginia from a private individual. Yet I still had to go to a Federal Firearms Licencee and get a Brady check done  before I could take possession of the weapon.

 

Every gun show I have ever been to has been absolutely crawling with State, local and Federal law enforcement types in plainclothes. I dare you to show me one murder where the weapon was actually purchased at a gun show without a background check. "Eliminating the gun-show loophole" is a non-solution to a non-problem. The last place a felon would go to acquire a firearm is a gun show.

 

Now, under Virginia law if I were to encounter someone interested in buying a firearm from me, I could sell it to him like a kid selling a glass of lemonade from a sidewalk stand.

 

But I guess we firearms owners are a funny bunch, because unless I knew the guy pretty damned well then a Federal Fireams licenced dealer would have to be involved, and the fee for the processing would be included in the price. And if I knew or should have known that the buyer was a "prohibited person", I would be in deep trouble, indeed. I've made a few "private sales", and they've all been Hoyle.

 

 

Still, I wouldn't have any problem if all firearms sales were required to undergo what is commonly called a "Brady check". Just so long as there were provisions that heirloom firearms and such could be put into recievership until the person who inherited them became of age to possess firearms.

 

Say I were to kick the bucket tomorrow, and my will had stipulated that that beautiful Combat Masterpiece would go to my (fictional) underaged nephew. Place some provison into the law that such transfers be not prohibitively onerous nor expensive, and we can talk.

 

But really, why change the way things are? Private firearms transfers between legitamate firearms owners are not a problem. If some sketchy dude offers me half a grand for one of my guns, then depending on my estimation of the threat I will take a course of action ranging from simply blowing him off to reporting the request to the authorities.

 

Most if not all transfers of firearms to prohibited persons involve firearms that are stolen or otherwise illegally obtained (or even manufactured). In  Alexandria recently a police car containing a Remington 870 riot shotgun was stolen. The car was recovered.

 

The shotgun was not. This is, please note, a "sawed-off" pump-action shotgun, easily concealed beneath a coat. And a shotgun can inflict carnage at short range just as bad or worse than a true (fully automatic) "assault rifle". As this is being written, it is not inconcievable that this very same shotgun is being sold in Oxon Hill, Maryland or in Sursum Corda in D.C.; and might be used tomorrow to slay an innocent or two (or three or four or five or six). Do you think that the guy who sold that shotgun was concerned in any way about the law?

 

The biggest "loophole" in the "gun control" laws is irreparable. It is the "I am a criminal and I don't give a fuck about the law" loophole. That, and not the so-called "gun show loophole" is the problem.