‘Historic’ action by justice department closes ‘doggone dangerous’ loophole in Biden administration’s fight against gun violence
The sale of firearms on the internet and at gun shows in the US will in future be subject to mandatory background checks, the justice department said on Thursday as it announced a “historic” new action to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.
The closing of the so-called gun show loophole, which exempts private transactions from restrictions that apply to licensed dealers, has long been a goal of the Biden administration, and is specifically targeted in the rule published in the federal register today.
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The White House estimates that 22% of guns owned by Americans were acquired without a background check and that about 23,000 more individuals will be required to be licensed as a dealer after the rule’s implementation.
It seems like this has less to do with where (gunshow) or how (internet) the guns are being sold, and more about the volume being moved.
The “loopholes” are still intact for the private person making an occasional sale. These regulations are looking at people selling, in any way, guns in volumes that the government feels should be regulated as an FFL.
Unsurprisingly, the article’s title and the general framing leads people to focus away from what the regulation is actually doing. It’s a story and a political move that manages to bring out the emotion in both pro and anti gun people, but where the change to the legal reality seems honestly boring.
The occasional private party sale from a “personal collection” isn’t what this is designed to stop. It’s intended to close the loopholes that required no background checks in certain transactions, which:
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Allowed people to function like online dealers, buying and selling volumes of guns, but claiming they are selling from personal collections.
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Allowed for the very common “gun shows,” which are frequent and widespread, to be used by #1 to sell guns to people in person not just online but to large, interested, and gathered crowds of people. These things are basically pop-up malls for guns, with a mixture of legitimate firearm businesses running background checks and tables of guns from a “private collection.”
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It prevents the “fire-sale loophole,” where gun stores, often ones that lose their license for other violations, close their business and liquidate their guns at steep discounts without background checks by claiming that the guns revert to private collection.
The purpose of this rule revision is to get rid of those loopholes, which is how the overwhelming majority of guns sold without background check happen.
The occasional sale between private parties from a personal collection, defined as a collection whose purpose is study, comparison, exhibition, or in pursuit of hobby like hunting and sport shooting isn’t the issue here. That doesn’t appear to be where most guns involved in crime that were purchased without a background check originate from.
Yes I read the article. I was pointing out how that was the case rather than, as the article title frames with its title, something to do specifically with posting guns online, or selling privately on gunshow grounds.
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The rule, which clarifies who is considered to be “engaged in the business” as a firearms dealer, will take effect in 30 days’ time, and follows a three-month consultation period that attracted almost 388,000 comments to the website of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
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I mean, it’s better than nothing, but still doesn’t do anything about the people outside the gun show with a trunk full of Glocks they’re selling for $100 over sticker price.
If a gun show table was for a store, they always had you do a background check.
This is a huge loophole, but this isn’t fixing it.
Hell, we don’t even enforce straw purchase laws when it involves a minor, moving the guns over state ligns, and murdering multiple people…
Even when the illegal buyer testifies on the stand that he intentionally planned and completed a straw our hase to illegally gain possession of a gun.
All the laws in the world don’t matter if no one enforced them.
We need a background check on every sale, and to prosecute people for flagrantly breaking gun laws.
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LiberalGunNut™ here. I sure as hell don’t want a national registry. As we slide further into fascism, you want a man like Trump knowing who has what?
And no, it really can’t be enforced. Guys like me will obey the law and other won’t, just as it is now.
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We just got our first case law for just that - meet the Crumbleys.
I’m on board for safe storage laws and enforcement for those that break them, but it will be interesting seeing how this comes out from appeals, given the manslaughter charge.
Even without a registry, that makes selling it without a check a clear crime.
Now as long as the seller “doesn’t know” the buyer can’t pass a background, that gives them plausible deniability. Which has the unintended effect of sellers not even asking the name of the buyer.
If every “private seller” knew they were breaking the law, and there was a good chance they’d be prosecuted if caught, they’d be a lot more likely to follow the law and go thru a FFL.
We don’t need to only do something that works 100% of the time, working 90% is still pretty good too…
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That wouldn’t be reliable to trace gun ownership history without the GOP-contested national gun registry. I’d even be for a “states’ rights” solution similar to how vehicle ownership is tracked via the Title with the state’s DMV. It will never be perfect, but “not perfect” shouldn’t be the blocker of “any action at all”.
We have that in Mich, for pistols anyway. Which is kinda surprising since this state is otherwise very pro-firearm (no waiting period, no mandatory safety stuff, etc)
Failure to update a transfer for a pistol in Michigan is a misdemeanor, so it’s not that oppressive, just really annoying.
Most of us who private sale do not sell to people who don’t have ccws, or aren’t in good standing with the communities we all take part in. On top of that, criminals will not follow this law and those that do will just do what they already do. Straw purchases.
I have never witnessed any seller give any thought to wether the buy had a CCW or not.
I have. Multiple times.
It does seem like a reasonable cya for selling to some one but I’ve just never seen it happen. The attitude around me tends to be indifference at best and more often contempt for performing any inquiries into the buyer’s eligibility.
Anecdotal, but I’ve read comments in the past exactly like OPs.
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We really do need a registry.
Incremental progress is unsatisfying and better than nothing. And this one is a little satisfying so I’ll take it.
The actual text of the rule (all 466 pages) does a decent job of closing out loopholes, but it does (in theory) provide an avenue to address unlicensed dealers.
pg. 457
Whether a person is engaged in the business as a dealer under paragraph (a) of this section is a fact-specific inquiry… there is no minimum number of transactions that determines whether a person is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms. At all times, the determination of whether a person is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms is based on the totality of the circumstances.
This is a good framework for a prosecutor to build from, but it’s not a firm line that immediately introduces legal peril like say, a “10 guns max per year sold” limit would once crossed. This will prevent bad enforcement against honest sellers, but lets off the ‘smaller fish’ who aren’t in flagrant violation and a prosecutor may not feel is a good case to try for conviction.
It will likely survive in a post-Mock v. Garland legal landscape, but its timidity was doubtlessly influenced by the legal beatdown the DoJ got on that other issue the last few years. ATF needs primary legislation to build from for enforcement, especially as scotus are eying up the Chevron doctrine that has guided courts and bureaucrats for decades.
all the things you complain about are already illegal. it’s not that things aren’t enforced. it’s that CRIMINALS DON’T FUCKING FOLLOW LAWS.
Why wasnt Kyle Rittenhouse and the adult who bought the gun for him (illegally as a straw purchase) prosecuted?
Like, the issue is the laws aren’t enforced.
By your logic no law should exist, which might very well be what you meant to say
He was held responsible.
"The man who bought an AR-15-style rifle for Kyle Rittenhouse pleaded no contest Monday to a reduced charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in a deal with prosecutors that allows him to avoid prison.
Kenosha County Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder accepted Dominick Black’s plea during a six-minute hearing. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger dropped two felony counts of intent to deliver a dangerous weapon to a minor as part of the deal."
how does my logic say no law should exist? how the FUCK to you twist what I said to mean that? You’re delusional person who is afraid of an inanimate object. Yes, enforce the laws we have. making all these new ones does nothing but create more criminals.
Even a background check on every sale wouldn’t be enough to catch some previous offenders, those on watch lists, or people with serious mental illness issues because the system is woefully incomplete. The whole thing is ridiculous. You shouldn’t be able to buy guns at conventions or on websites to begin with. Honestly, I’m amazed licensed gun dealers haven’t been pushing congress to make it so that people have to buy guns through them- or if they have, I haven’t heard about it.
I don’t think it is realistic to get guns out of the equation in America any time soon, but it’s become such an insane free-for-all. Nothing enforced, everything has a loophole.
Guns bought online require a bgc and shipped to an FFL. Why are you assuming they don’t?
When did I say they didn’t?
What’s the qualm with online sales? They get shipped to an FFL and a background check is performed before the transfer anyways. Online sales add more competition to the market and increases consumer choice.
As for why FFLs don’t lobby for protectionist practices beyond principal, FFLs have terrible margins, are generally small businesses without much lobbying power, and lobbying for anti consumer practices generally doesn’t go well in that market. People are still mad at Springfield Armory (the company) for rescinding opposition on a failed Illinois bill after they got a carve out exemption so it wouldn’t apply to them (unlike their competition).
Just wondering, if you buy a gun online, how is it packaged? Would it for instance be evident to someone that might want to steal a gun?
It’s pretty mundane looking. I’ve always just got a plain brown box. Same for ammo.
BUT, it’s not legal to ship guns directly to you or I. I order a gun on guns.com and it goes to my FFL guy. I go sit in his kitchen, fill out the forms and give him his $20.
Typically a cardboard box, maybe also a hard case in the box. Depends on who you are buying it from. They’ll be mailed via USPS directly to a FFL (think gun store) and delivered into the store (not just left on a porch).
I had this box laying around in case I ever needed to RMA.
In every year since 2018, there have been more than one million ads offering firearms for sale by unlicensed sellers in states that do not legally require a background check, a circumstance that creates endless opportunities for individuals with dangerous histories to easily acquire guns. Federal law requires a background check of a prospective gun buyer only when the seller is a licensed gun dealer, leaving all other sales—such as unlicensed gun sales negotiated over the internet—unregulated and with no background check required.
For more than a decade, the online firearm marketplace has emerged as a growing market for anonymous gun purchases through websites such as Armslist, the self-proclaimed “largest free gun classifieds on the web.” Everytown has worked to understand the scope and threat of this type of commerce. This report lays out the results of Everytown’s analysis of Armslist ads between 2018 and 2020, and the findings of our prior investigations examining the criminal backgrounds of buyers, how transactions are carried out, and whether unlicensed sellers would require a background check on a private gun sale.
https://everytownresearch.org/report/unchecked-an-investigation-of-the-online-firearm-marketplace/
Those kind of transfers aren’t online sales but face to face sales facilitated by a post. None of the actual transaction is online.
In an online sale a buyer pays a seller through e-commerce then the seller mails the firearms to an FFL near the buyer where they go and pick it up after a background check.
That source seems to unintentionally conflate the former with the latter.
states that do not legally require a background check
Bald faced lie, not even going to read the rest. Background checks are federally required. States can impose additional restrictions, but they cannot bypass this. It would be a Bulgarian cluster fuck if they did. They do not.
If you had read the rest, you would have seen that is literally mentioned in the next sentence of what I quoted…
