Please search the FBI and ATF online data for people arrested and or convicted of straw purchases.
Then tell me how serious they are about stopping it.
How are there so many repeat offenders that are violent with guns?
It seems to be some kind of trend to make guns a white-collar crime or something. Like, if you don't file the right paperwork before loaning someone a pistol at the range, then it's a crime; but if you mug someone its the gun's fault.
Also see why some gun laws are written in an extremely obfuscated and convoluted manner, for example the law that became a point of contention in State v. Rittenhouse.
Abramski v. United States suggests that SCOTUS recognizes that straw purchases are illegal. Although, I guess the current SCOTUS isn't above ignoring precedent that is popular with the people.
I assume you are referring to roe v wade, which is a case of where the precedent was wrong ín the first place (Abortion was pretty much banned everywhere in common law, so there was no precedent of it being an unenumerated right, for example) and was kept as a precedent because it was a precedent (ignoring the lack of underlying constitutionality)
Isn't this always the court's opinion when it overturns precedent?
Ask people if they want gun laws enforced, and they say yes. Ask people if they like it when prosecutors charge a guy with 30 crimes for committing one act of armed robbery, and many start singing a different tune.
In this case though, straw purchases _are_ the main crime and there is a real lack of enforcement for that particular crime.
Such a subcrime would be a "lesser included offense"; you can charge for both offenses, but you can't get a conviction on both of them at once.
What this discussion touches on is not multiplicity but unreasonable multiplication of charges (at least in my jurisdiction we call it that). The test here is not the logical question of whether one necessitates the other by definition; it's the factual question of whether the offenses are part of substantially the same transaction. For example, a prosecutor might charge perjury, fraud, and larceny, wrt someone swearing to some materially false fact and fraudulently obtaining someone else's property with intent to permanently deprive them of it. These three offenses are not subsets of one another, but are closely related; it isn't logically necessary to commit perjury to commit fraud, in the abstract, but in a particular case that might be the mechanism by which one commits fraud. In my jurisdiction, UMC charges can stay on the charge sheet (perhaps the jury finds guilt on one but not all?) but, if convicted of more than one, they are merged for sentencing.
if a straw purchased gun is used in a crime, I'd be surprised if it didn't get investigated.
Well, let's say the original purchaser happens to be suspected of a crime (completely unrelated to a straw purchase, let's say bank robbery) and during a search of that purchaser's house, federal agents find a receipt for a check with "Glock 19" written on the memo line, it'll get their attention [0]. Very likely scenario :)
Other than that, good old fashioned surveillance plus a getting a confession [1]. I've also heard ads on the radio for a tipline to tell cops about straw purchases. No idea how well that works, though.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States#Fact...
1 - https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/philadelphia-woman-conv...
This is usually resolved by not adding the jail times for the crimes, but by doing MAX(a, b, ...) on them. Prosecutors will suddenly only care about the most important ones.
The gun problem is synonymous with the Republican problem.
Because blaming Republicans is just a canned argument at this point, can you unpack the mechanism a bit more? Are Democrats trying really hard to fund ATF, FBI, etc and Republicans are blocking it? Can you substantiate this claim with examples? I don't necessarily doubt it, but without substance this just reads like vapid flamebait.
A straw purchase is when a gun is purchased on behalf of someone else. The person buying the gun isn't using their own money, or the person they're giving it to has traded them something of value.
A gift doesn't involve an exchange of reciprocal value. In other words, I can legally take you into a gun store, let you shop, buy the gun for you, then hand it to you. In practice, a gift purchase is almost always when the recipient isn't there, because it looks like a straw purchase.
Ironically, if you take someone shopping to buy them a gun as a gift, by law you're the one that's supposed to have the background check run - not the recipient. Almost all FFLs will deny the sale if you tell them that you're buying it as a gift for someone who is present at the time, and there is no easy and legal way to run a background check on the intended recipient.
If memory serves, a cop was convicted a few years ago of a straw purchase after buying a "blue label" (police discount price) Glock for someone else. That person gave the cop the money, the cop bought it, then gave it to the person. The actual buyer in that case was not a prohibited person, and the straw purchase itself was the only crime committed.
> Ironically, if you take someone shopping to buy them a gun as a gift, by law you're the one that's supposed to have the background check run - not the recipient.
That is contrary to what is on ATF Form 4473 [0]. Form 4473, question 21.a., asks if the purchaser is the actual transferee of the firearm. The form makes it very clear that it is a crime to answer "yes" if the buyer is purchasing the firearm to transfer to another person.
[0] https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-trans...
It's more of a gray area when it's an intrafamilial transfer.
As far as actually catching perpetrators? Again, without a database its usually down to undercover work and tips.
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/crime-g...
https://giffords.org/lawcenter/state-laws/trafficking-straw-...
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/56-arrests-dozens-of-narco...
I have my doubts that in the situation that you described that there would be interest and motivation to prosecute, but if that buddy had gone on to commit a felony, or this was a repeated offense, then they would use warrants, subpoenas, and other standard prosecutorial tools to try to find the cache, get electronic records, and compel witnesses to testify. As someone else noted, all that's required is falsifying the the purchase details (Abramski vs US).
Nuance is required. In Florida, for example, it's legal for person to person private sale of firearms. There are restrictions that you're legally obligated to follow. Pulled this quick list from a search; https://www.pumphreylawfirm.com/blog/can-i-sell-a-gun-privat.... "Straw purchases" then means there has to be intent to provide it to someone free of charge (hard to prove) in addition to providing the firearm to someone for which it is illegal for them to own one. Otherwise it's merely a private sale.
This isn't a very good definition of a straw purchase. Buying a gun as a gift for someone is legal (federally, at least) and usually not considered a straw purchase. It's a straw purchase if you aren't the actual buyer, but are acting as an agent for somebody else, whether or not they could have bought the gun themselves legally, and whether or not money changes hands. It is, of course, up to the prosecution to prove you were acting as an agent rather than gifting, or buying for yourself and then later deciding to resell.
Straw purchases can happen if you are selling privately too. You should take a few steps to make sure the buyer is legit. Ask to see a concealed carry permit or FOID card. Or ask for a driver's license, and put the info down on a bill of sale that you then both sign. Keep the bill of sale forever, in case the gun should ever be stolen or used in a crime - it can help get the gun back to the new owner if the ATF does a trace.
Nope - it doesn't matter whether or not the actual buyer can legally purchase or possess it. A straw purchase is a crime regardless.
> You should take a few steps to make sure the buyer is legit.
Morally, yes. Practically, no.
You're only committing a crime if you know or should reasonably know the person you're selling to is prohibited. You have no legal duty to ask, and asking only proves that you considered the possibility, and could be construed as evidence that you were suspicious.
In college I would find deals on guns on Backpage, buy them cheap, and then resell them at a much higher listed price.
No background checks were required for private sales, so all I had to check was that the person had a driver's license for the correct state when I sold it, and even then no bill of sale or info was required.
Make your selling process known, and you'll get some very sketchy buyers that are willing to pay high prices, and it's all technically legal as the seller as you don't even need to ask if the buyer is legally able to purchase a firearm, and it helps fund college tuition.
1) acting as a dealer (buying with intent to resell - aka 'dealing in firearms' [https://fflconsultinggroup.com/federal-firearms-license-what...])
2) likely selling to those who were not residents in the same state (you mention drivers licenses 'for the correct state', which implies not all the same state) [https://thefirearmfirm.com/gifting-or-selling-a-firearm-acro...]
3) selling to those you reasonably suspect may not be eligible to own. [https://www.nrablog.com/articles/2016/4/buying-and-selling-a...]
Do you ever feel bad about selling guns to people who have been convicted of a severe enough crime to not be able to buy one directly?
I find that intuition is far more reliable than documentation anyhow. I’ve turned down several sales because the buyer struck me as irresponsible.
Having a higher willingness to pay could be a whole bunch of things; I just found there was a curious number of buyers that would pay over the going rate, which in a free market may have meant there was a reason for it.
I also take ideological issue with the felons cannot own firearms rules. Imo, if you've served your time, your debt to society was served, and your rights should be restored.
I was never under the impression that these weapons would be used for violent crime.
The way it works with firearms, purchasing a gun on behalf of somebody else (not as a gift) is illegal regardless of that other person's legal status as a gun owner. If you and I are both allowed to buy and own guns but for whatever reason agree that you will give me money and I'll buy a gun for you, that's illegal.
I've known people who buy and sell quite a few guns, and even though there was no legal requirement for them to do so, this was their policy. Show them a matching permit to acquire or carry permit and driver's license, or they wouldn't sell a gun. Nothing was written down, but if you weren't willing to show matching paperwork and an ID, they wouldn't sell it to you. And I think in a few cases, if the buyer was being unusually squirrely and evasive, they didn't even get that far.
Very, very few gun owners have any desire to sell guns to prohibited persons.
I know an awful lot of gun owners, and I can't think of one who would sell a gun to someone they suspected wasn't permitted to own one.
I bring this up because people like yourself slowly erode rights by doing "the right thing" when that thing is giving up something you will never get back.
21.a. Are you the actual transferee/buyer of the firearm(s) listed on this form and any continuation sheet(s) (ATF Form 5300.9A)? Warning: You are not the actual transferee/buyer if you are acquiring the firearm(s) on behalf of another person. If you are not the actual transferee/buyer, the licensee cannot transfer the firearm(s) to you.
If you answer No to this question, the transfer cannot continue.
Cite: https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-trans...
It may not be a straw purchase, but it’s also not primarily for your collection. The threshold of “business” or “dealing” seem intentionally vague by the ATF, but what you described can be interpreted as illegal without an FFL. My two cents anyway.
"Oh, gee, I just bought the gun on Tuesday and sold it on Thursday for no particular reason. It just happens that the gun appreciated by 20% during that time and my friend really didn't want to spend so much gas getting all the way to the gun store anyway. Who would have guessed such a fine person would be a felon? Same for the other 14 counts."
Say the seller transfers a gun they've owned for several years to an out-of-state prohibited person. The gun turns up in crime. The original purchases lies and says they sold it just one year after ownership to an in-state person, and haven't possessed this gun for several years. There's no requirement for sellers to keep record of who they sold firearms to, so it's hard to prove this defense wrong.
A straw purchase is someone asking you to purchase on their behalf and doing things like providing funds, telling you how to fill out the form and/or coming to the store with you. Those are the people that end up convicted.
You can think of it similar to tax evasion. Failing to declare $10,000 in income because you didn't understand the tax code is not a crime. Intentionally hiding $10,000 of income is.
If I purchase for myself, and then sell it to someone else, when does that constitute a straw purchase?
If that is your earnest intent when you bought it, then ostensibly it would be legal. However...
Laws aren't computer code; gray areas get hashed out in court. How often you've done this and the amount of time that passed between the purchase and sale would be considered, as well as any paper trail you might have left. Simply put, there is no firm answer to your question. Talk to a real lawyer if you think you're wading into a gray area like that.
Exactly.
My point was that GP skipped straight over the fact that this is significantly difficult to prosecute, and stated with no evidence that the federal authorities must "not be serious" about it.
As a gun owner, sure there is. If your gun shows up in a crime, you get indicted as well. That would put a big dent in people being willing to buy guns for others.
Also making sure there are no secondary sales without background checks, which is supported by (I think?) the majority of Americans would help.
Repeat offenders at losing guns lose the right to any guns.
All of these would stop repeat offenders, and if I recall, the majority of straw sales are repeat offenders knowing they don't get in much or any trouble buying guns this way.
It's only supported by the majority of Americans until you ask them about specific situations and policy implications. Instead of a generic "Do you support universal background checks?" question they should try asking "Should you have to perform a background check to loan a gun to your roommate to take to the range?" or "Should you have to perform a background check to loan a gun to your next door neighbor who is worried her violent stalker ex-boyfriend has figured out where she lives?" and you'll find much lower levels of support.
Yes to both. It takes 30 seconds to run the check. They're not required to interview kindergarden classmates or something crazy.
As far as I know, in Massachusetts anybody who has a license to carry has already passed a background check. If the recipient has an LTC, then you know they're okay. And as the transferer, you most likely want to be entering the transaction into the state's database of ownership ^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h transfers so that if something nefarious is done with the gun, they don't come looking at you.
Of course the waiting time (and possible hoops, depending on city/town/class/race/etc) to originally get your license to carry dovetails right into your (hyperbolic) point. And I don't particularly enjoy having to register personal property with the state, nor needing a license to possess personal property. And overall Massachusetts is known as one of the most restrictive firearm regimes in the nation. Still I just feel its worth looking at how existing regimes tackle the problem, to see where their pain points and loopholes are. I feel electronic databases would be a lot less onerous in general if they were built with foundational cryptographic privacy, with a public audit log for every access.
Overall I feel like we'd be better off focusing on fixing our society's pervasive mental health problem rather than turning the whole country into a padded room by myopically focusing on inanimate objects. Mentally healthy people don't want to shoot up schools/trains/churches.
(I'm aware my comment is full of non-partisan nuance. Downvote away)
For every person you cherry picked getting raped that would have stopped the assailant with a gun, many more are killed under the current system.
Instead of picking outlying events and trying to put them forth as common, why not look at common events to start with? You'll get much better policy and understanding from that.
The CDC disagrees with you. In the study that is fairly well known at this point, the CDC estimates 500k defensive gun uses every year in the US. Note that I am giving you the lowest number in their range. However there are about 40k deaths due to gun usage every year. 75% of all deaths due to gun usage are suicides. In actuality, there are 10k deaths due to gun usage we need to look at during discussion of gun regulation in the United States.
When they cited a number they gave a range: 60,000 to 2.5 million. Quite the uncertainty there. They've since replaced the wording on that page entirely, because the CDC doesn't actually know: the CDC is effectively prohibited from investigating gun violence [2]
[1] https://www.thetrace.org/2022/06/defensive-gun-use-data-good...
Also, since I've never heard of this CDC study, you should provide a link if you plan to cite it. I think it's more common in your social circle/internet bubble than with the general population.
Fund mental health if you want to help the suicidal people.
> At least 2/3 of suicides are based on a fleeting desire
How do you know?
I'm not being snarky. I'm genuinely curious.
We obviously can't ask someone who was successful at committing suicide about their mental/emotional state, eh?
For the sake of discussion let's assume the point.
These suicides by gun due to "a fleeting desire" would be presumably among people who already had guns? How fleeting is the desire? Is the idea that if someone who has been struck by the "fleeting desire" to kill themself has to go get a gun first then there's time for the "fleeting desire" to wear off before they can act on it?
The point isn't that people buy a gun to commit suicide, it's that if you already have a gun you will use it when overwhelmed as opposed to attempting to kill yourself in a less successful way.
FWIW the argument still seems weak to me. The methodology here is still unclear:
> You look at the rates of people attempting suicide a second time if their first attempt was interrupted, and you do your best to identify only the serious first attempts
You find people that definitely attempted suicide and were interrupted, then track them (for how long?) to see if they try again? An attempt is counted as "serious" only if they try again (within some time frame)? Are you saying that 2/3 of them don't try again?
- - - -
> if you already have a gun you will use it when overwhelmed as opposed to attempting to kill yourself in a less successful way.
Okay, but then what's the intervention here?
Are you saying that we remove guns from everyone just in case someone has a really bad day and offs themself? (I do not mean to sound flippant, I hope I'm not coming across that way. I'm thinking of Hunter Thompson here, RIP, who arguably should not have had access to firearms in his condition.)
Yes.
> ou find people that definitely attempted suicide and were interrupted, then track them
Pretty much. Obviously, people's natural lifespans exceed how long these studies have been going on, so there's a natural timelimit. I think most studies look 5 years out.
> An attempt is counted as "serious" only if they try again
No, the exact opposite. You try to find out if the interrupted attempt was serious. I'm saying that the 2/3 number isn't counting people who idly speculate about suicide or write a note. It's counting people who take steps that realistically can be interpreted as an attempt.
Of those people who made a "serious" attempt, 2/3 will not try again.
> Okay, but then what's the intervention here?
I mean, if you're jumping from "suicides are irrelevant" to "what policies can prevent them", I'm not sure. If we didn't care about self-defense, there would be lots of policies (requiring guns to be locked up at ranges or something), but people do care about self-defense. And any barrier that will prevent suicide likely will prevent that. Consider some magic program that assesses mental state. You're probably under similar emotional stress in both suicide and self-defense.
But as is, that does seem to be one thing "red flag" laws are for.
If you're not involved in gang banging / drugs then in the extremely uncommon chance you die by firearm, it's most likely it was a choice of suicide. In Europe and many other developed nations with harsh firearm laws, suicide via physician is an option so a more comforting and society-approved solution rather than firearm becomes more favored for suicide.
Sounds possible in theory, but not so much in practice. Let's say I live my whole life as a model citizen, then one day buy a gun with the intent to kill a bunch of people. No background check in the world would deny my purchase. What now?
In any case, your hypothetical model citizen wouldn’t be bothered by background checks and waiting periods, so there’s no harm in restrictions that prevent crimes that would be stopped by a mandatory cooling off period.
It is quite common that the perpetrators of mass shootings have previously had the police called to them by their partner. Rarely is anything done about this, but that's the motivation for "red flag" laws.
There were reasons things were rarely done. Most importantly, under 18 or non-married calls didn't count as red flags. Congress just passed a bill fixing those two issues going forward that Biden is extremely likely to sign into law.
In CA it takes two visits to an FFL for each transfer (to them and back to you) with a 10 day waiting period in between the two visits and a $35 fee. Your "it takes 30 seconds" tells me you have no idea the reality of how gun laws affect the law abiding.
California's more draconian rules than what's been proposed has no bearing on anything.
I just bought a rifle in Nevada a couple weeks ago. It took multiple days to run the check.
No to both.
Not at all, the current state-level bans on private sales only make exceptions for immediate family members and a few other specific groups/situations, they would make the behavior in my questions a felony.
Here's Washington State's exceptions (note that c would not apply to my violent ex scenario because the violent ex would need to be actually present at the time of the transfer and threatening harm):
(4) This section does not apply to: (a) A transfer between immediate family members, which for this subsection shall be limited to spouses, domestic partners, parents, parents-in-law, children, siblings, siblings-in-law, grandparents, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, first cousins, aunts, and uncles, that is a bona fide gift or loan; (b) The sale or transfer of an antique firearm; (c) A temporary transfer of possession of a firearm if such transfer is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to the person to whom the firearm is transferred if: (i) The temporary transfer only lasts as long as immediately necessary to prevent such imminent death or great bodily harm; and (ii) The person to whom the firearm is transferred is not prohibited from possessing firearms under state or federal law; (d) A temporary transfer of possession of a firearm if: (i) The transfer is intended to prevent suicide or self-inflicted great bodily harm; (ii) the transfer lasts only as long as reasonably necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm; and (iii) the firearm is not utilized by the transferee for any purpose for the duration of the temporary transfer; (e) Any law enforcement or corrections agency and, to the extent the person is acting within the course and scope of his or her employment or official duties, any law enforcement or corrections officer, United States marshal, member of the armed forces of the United States or the national guard, or federal official; (f) A federally licensed gunsmith who receives a firearm solely for the purposes of service or repair, or the return of the firearm to its owner by the federally licensed gunsmith; (g) The temporary transfer of a firearm (i) between spouses or domestic partners; (ii) if the temporary transfer occurs, and the firearm is kept at all times, at an established shooting range authorized by the governing body of the jurisdiction in which such range is located; (iii) if the temporary transfer occurs and the transferee's possession of the firearm is exclusively at a lawful organized competition involving the use of a firearm, or while participating in or practicing for a performance by an organized group that uses firearms as a part of the performance; (iv) to a person who is under eighteen years of age for lawful hunting, sporting, or educational purposes while under the direct supervision and control of a responsible adult who is not prohibited from possessing firearms; (v) under circumstances in which the transferee and the firearm remain in the presence of the transferor; or (vi) while hunting if the hunting is legal in all places where the person to whom the firearm is transferred possesses the firearm and the person to whom the firearm is transferred has completed all training and holds all licenses or permits required for such hunting, provided that any temporary transfer allowed by this subsection is permitted only if the person to whom the firearm is transferred is not prohibited from possessing firearms under state or federal law; (h) A person who (i) acquired a firearm other than a pistol by operation of law upon the death of the former owner of the firearm or (ii) acquired a pistol by operation of law upon the death of the former owner of the pistol within the preceding sixty days. At the end of the sixty-day period, the person must either have lawfully transferred the pistol or must have contacted the department of licensing to notify the department that he or she has possession of the pistol and intends to retain possession of the pistol, in compliance with all federal and state laws; or (i) A sale or transfer when the purchaser or transferee is a licensed collector and the firearm being sold or transferred is a curio or relic.
They would also stop of lot of existing homicides, which are also felonies already being committed. Your cases are honestly quite contrived and rare, especially against the number of homicides and other crimes using straw purchases.
I think most people would trade common case homicides for rarer cases you pick. The stats are pretty clear on which cases are most common. That is why the support for such laws is so widespread and bipartisan.
And you know, this problem has to be solved right now: too much of an imposition to look out for them while they go and buy a gun from one of the numerous gun stores - but giving away a loaded gun, that's what you want to do (no one would do this in this scenario).
It also seems you're trying to stack the deck in your favor. If you're going to ask questions designed to pull support away with cherry picked circumstances, then you should also ask cherry picked questions leading the other way, like pointing out how many mass shootings are done with guns that bypassed background checks.
So cite your poll please. I'd like to see the questions.
Or you can ask a fairly neutral question, like [1], a poll with the question "How much do you support or oppose each of the following? Requiring background checks on all gun sales"
73% strongly support, 15% somewhat support, 4% somewhat oppose, 4% strongly oppose, 5% don't know/no opinion.
That's a pretty neutral question, has massive support.
Let's see your data on your split questions.
[1] https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-fe72-d0c2-a9ae-ff725...
Can you name some? Better yet, can you point to data on how often this has happened?
Off the top of my head, I can think of several instances where the guns were legally purchased and the shooter passed the background checks. I can think of a couple where they were stolen, and one where they were taken from a family member after that family member's murder. I can't think of any where the firearm(s) were acquired exclusively through private sale.
How would it help at all? They've already proven willing to break the law with the straw purchase.
> All of these would stop repeat offenders, and if I recall, the majority of straw sales are repeat offenders knowing they don't get in much or any trouble buying guns this way.
You don't know what you're talking about. It's a felony, and precludes you from purchasing or even possessing a firearm ever again. It's not possible to be a repeat offender.
What does a firearm have to do with alcohol and tobacco?
I did a quick Google, and -- sure enough! --
"Biden nominee for ATF Director says he's never owned a gun"
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/06/biden-nominee-for-a...
And I'm also pretty sure it's not "Republican" DAs and AGs refusing to prosecute crime.
"At the N.R.A.’s instigation, Congress has limited the bureau’s budget. It has imposed crippling restrictions on the collection and use of gun-ownership data, including a ban on requiring basic inventories of weapons from gun dealers. It has limited unannounced inspections of gun dealers. Fifteen years ago, the N.R.A. successfully lobbied to make the director’s appointment subject to Senate confirmation — and has subsequently helped block all but one nominee from taking office."
I'm pretty sure no DA is refusing to prosecute violent crime. One party is limiting the gun crimes that DAs can prosecute. https://www.salon.com/2022/06/06/us-laws-are-causing-mayhem-...
This is A) obviously nonsense B) does not incentivize any positive behavioral changes C) equivalent to banning re-selling your guns.
We already have the ability to prosecute people who perform straw purchases.
> the majority of straw sales are repeat offenders
Sounds like the problem lies with straw purchase enforcement, not with the entire concept of gun resale.
If you loan your car to someone and they commit a crime with it, you can face charges for it. If you sell your car without a termination of interest notice filed with the state and the new owner doesn't file the signed title, it is still legally your car and what the new owner does with it can get you in legal trouble.
In general if you have no reason to believe someone will commit a crime with your car, you typically can't be found criminally liable for merely loaning it out. With firearms, it's actually a federal crime to lend a firearm to an out of state resident except for lawful sporting purposes (not general purposes, like lawful self defense).
Temporary use for lawful sporting purposes. I've taken that to mean I can let my out-of-state buddy try my rifle while we're at the range, or use it while on a hunting trip together. I would be pretty careful about lending out a gun to an out-of-state resident without being present the whole time they are using it, otherwise I'd be afraid of getting into a legal battle about whether it was temporary use.
I would be quite shocked if anyone was prosecuted under 18 U.S. Code § 922 (a) (5) for a firearm loaned exclusively for sporting purposes, but this is not legal advice. Personally I can think of at least one long-running skeet/trap range that will lend out shotguns for sporting purposes without any representative being anywhere near present while you use it, and they've been on the radar in plain sight doing this for decades across thousands of people (and they'll lend to any tom/dick/harry without any scrutiny).
if your car is involved in a crime, the cops will come looking for you. maybe you can beat a conviction but you might face an uphill battle even with an attorney. but sure, it's not illegal to sell a car without transferring the title, but neither is it considered a legal sale. that is still your car as long as the title is in your name.
Sure, they'll come looking for you. Registration and titling of cars just makes that even worse, not better, for innocent people who lend out cars. If that's your argument, that's one against having registration / serial numbers / record of transferring firearms.
The police can also rake you over the coals for anything. I had a search warrant once served to me because a few corrupt DHS agents (CBP and HSI) fabricated a warrant that suggested I had drugs up my ass (not even embellishing here). Police can come looking for you for any reason they want.
Hopefully innocent people are eventually vindicated (as I was), but it's definitely better to never be identified in the first place if you're an innocent.
Arguing against regular old accountability is not a good look.
Taking a group, the vast majority of which have done nothing wrong, and wholesale holding them 'accountable' by releasing their private information is senseless and indefensible.
There is so much more to this story than you're telling us. My first thought is that there is probably a reason for that. But I'm genuinely interested in hearing more.
So again, as many others have said, if your gun is stolen then what? You’re implying that if your gun showed up at a crime scene you’ve done something wrong, which is clearly not true in many cases.
All this will do is decrease gun ownership due to liability.
Buying a gun "for" someone else is a very gray area. For example, if I bought a gun and ten years later sold it to some guy who committed a crime, should I be indicted? Was this a straw purchase with a looooong time window? Or if I truly did buy a gun for someone else (as in, purchased and delivered the same day) and he waits ten years to commit a crime, was this also a true straw purchase? How can you tell?
No, because for you to sell it to him, you'd have done the background check, and transferred it to him. That is the point.
Same as car titles, or mortgage deeds, or others items in society that transfer ownership.
In most (all?) states there's no need for a background check or any kind of record keeping when two individuals are selling/transferring to one another [0]. Between states it's another story.
> Same as car titles, or mortgage deeds, or others items in society that transfer ownership.
There's no constitutional right to any of those things, which is what makes the situation different.
0: https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/federal-ccw-law/f...
Have you followed this thread at all? I am fully aware of this, having done many gun transfers.
This thread is about adding universal background checks.
>There's no constitutional right to any of those things, which is what makes the situation different.
It is not different at all - it is perfectly constitutional to require background checks and transfers - that is how the current system is legal.
And all constitutional rights have bounds. 1st Amendment free speech has limits on what you can say, where you can do it, even requiring permits for many cases. 3rd, 4th, 5th Amendments about housing and property - you have a constitutional right to property, but it can be deprived, and many forms are registered and require paperwork to transfer. So it's not at all different from other property registration and transfers.
Most definitely yes. It makes no difference even if he never commits a crime, it's still a straw purchase. Per 18 USC 922(a)(6), you cannot lie to a federal dealer when purchasing a firearm. Question 21(a) on the mandatory Form 4473 (Firearm Transaction Record) asks if you are the actual buyer and not buying on behalf of someone else. If you answer no, the sale is denied. If you answer yes and it isn't true, you have violated 922(a)(6).
so, someone breaks into my house while I am on vacation for three weeks, ignores the alarm, rips open the gun safe, takes a gun, kills someone...I go to jail?
but even in the case of actual straw purchases, the buyer is often victimized by the ultimate intended user...gangs browbeating vulnerable people etc. doesn't excuse the crime, but imprisoning a mule won't stop much
Not if you report it or demonstrate it was stolen. And I didn't write "go to jail" - indicted means they're going to investigate you, just like they do now when a gun registered to someone shows up in crimes. And those people don't "go to jail" if they didn't have the gun.
What it does curtail is people buying guns to give away, because at some point enough guns will show up having been registered to them then used in crimes, and that should be prosecuted. That behavior is what is going to bring even stricter regulations if it is not curtailed by some set of laws.
I'd prefer a decent background check on firearm transfers - I already pass them with zero problem, but it would hinder people that should be banned from working around such measures.
That's not what "indicted" means. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment#United_States
These days they can even catch over stamping, I heard about some cases using xray to do it. So it's more trouble than it's worth to remove serials on new guns usually. For some reason I hear about almost no instances of peening to hide it, which is probably because you need to know the right size and pressure so it mostly makes sense at scale.
It's funny the number of criminals that run around with literally filed off serials and get themselves literally 10x the time on the gun charge as whatever else they caught for.
You can instead get a shitty gun bc some have badly done serials (speshul wepunz has done this before, but ofc then you have to shoot one lol), you can get an old gun, you can finish an 80% lower. But most criminals just steal or straw buy, or buy smuggled guns (the philippines is notorious for this).
The classic trick for removing serial numbers and foil attempts at recovery is to weld over. For guns this gets complicated because you're potentially altering heat treated parts that would need to be re-treated but that's doable. The kind of people who tend to own heat treat ovens tend to be the kind to ask questions but that would cost $$. There are many common and popular guns where the serialized parts are not mechanically significant enough to warrant special heat treating in which case weld away.
Welded over is trivial to recover the serial numbers. See the refs I posted for example.
Also just scratching the surface smooth is not enough, and most people screw that up. The stamping leaves strain marks in the metal under the surface, and these can be recovered from a completely smoothed surface.
For example https://www.horiba.com/int/science-in-action/raman-breakthro... and https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2...
These are just the tip of the iceberg for recovery techniques.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/25/sources-secret-serv...
I hadn't heard about it before.
Sounds like a BS statistic: what about all the crimes people got away with committing? How do they know the status of the guns used in those?
The real answer is probably that stolen guns are probably used by more sophisticated criminals (i.e., the ones that elude the police). And straw purchases are used by the people who keep getting caught, hence the need for the straw purchase to begin with.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/guns/procon/g...
> An expert on crime gun patterns, ATF agent Jay Wachtel says that most guns used in crimes are not stolen out of private gun owners' homes and cars. "Stolen guns account for only about 10% to 15% of guns used in crimes," Wachtel said. Because when they want guns they want them immediately the wait is usually too long for a weapon to be stolen and find its way to a criminal.
> In fact, there are a number of sources that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands, with gun thefts at the bottom of the list. Wachtel says one of the most common ways criminals get guns is through straw purchase sales.