The jury isn't just there to protect you. It's also there to send you away when you are obviously trying to hack the system.

"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."

The average time between when a gun is bought from an FFL and subsequently used in crime is something like 20 years IIRC. The person who bought it new could more often than not easily claim to have sold it years ago, and passed through countless intermediate owners.

All transfer across state lines must go through an FFL and a NICS check by law. The only sale/transfer allowed without a NICS check is between two residents of the same state when the seller has no reason to believe or suspect that the purchaser is prohibited. Realistically that leaves a very narrow window of purchases that are unlawful but the seller has plausible deniability.

> The only sale/transfer allowed without a NICS check is between two residents of the same state when the seller has no reason to believe or suspect that the purchaser is prohibited.

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.

It is legal to buy a firearm under your name as a gift. Straw purchase has a very specific meaning. Buying on a Monday then selling to someone on Tuesday is not a straw purchase.

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.