"It's a private sale. We're not dealers."

[Robb]

"No paperwork, nothing."

[Bolo Boffin]

1. Anybody with a booth at a gun show is not conducting a private sale.

Unless that's their Maw-Maw who stopped by the convention center to pick up her Glock.

[doc03]

2. It's common practice if you want to sell a gun just walk around the

gun show with a price tag on your gun and wait for an offer. Yes there are private sellers with a table at gun shows. I have sold several guns myself to people I know but I could also sell them to anyone if I don't (know) they are a fellon or a mental patient.

[Hoyt]

3. The gun cultists tell us there is no gun show loophole. Of course, they also pretend

gun dealers and buyers are not mostly uneducated old white guys.

[Recursion]

5. The point is that loophole had nothing to do with being at a gun show

The same thing could happen at a swap meet or a garage sale.

I can't speak for the gun cultists; personally I'm just genuinely mystified why gun shows keep being brought up here as if that's the only place where private sales happen.

[Squinch]

7. No one is saying that the gun show is the only place it can happen.

It's called the gun show loophole like the Twinky Defense is called the Twinky Defense. That is crazy too, but it refers to the murderous state one supposedly enters when one overindulges in sugar. No one is saying that it's limited to Twinkies. For example, Smarties and Yodels and Kit Kats can purportedly make people kill too. But we still call it the Twinky Defense.

In the same way, no one is saying that this idiocy is limited to gun shows. It's just a term.

Gun nuts, I notice, like to act as if the use of the term denotes ignorance of the fact that the private sale loophole can refer to garage sales and private sales. They use that as a way to try and shut down a conversation, or imply that the other person doesn't know enough to have an opinion. This is usually accompanied by a really stupid conversation about gun terminology.

All of which is very silly.

[Recursion]

8. That's also not what the Twinkie defense was

White's defense was that he was severely depressed, and he offered as evidence of that the fact that whereas he had previously been a health nut, he had been eating junk food after he resigned from the council.

Anyways, as you say,

Gun nuts, I notice, like to act as if the use of the term denotes ignorance of the fact that the private sale loophole can refer to garage sales and private sales.

Like I said, I can't speak for gun nuts; I just do find the choice of term legitimately mystifying. What percentage of private sales happen at gun shows, for that matter? Do we even know? It would seem like a bad place to do them since there are usually ATF agents at them.

[Squinch]

9. But he did not say that the junk food he was eating was limited to Twinkies. I believe

he mentioned a lot of Coca Cola too.

And, shockingly, here we are in a ridiculous side conversation about terminology. But, OK, let's go with it:

What percentage of the food White was eating was Twinkies? Would a low percentage mean that the term can't be used?

Would that conversation be one worth having?

Or can we both admit that this is conversation is not really germain to the idea of this thread, which is that the gun show loophole, which refers to gun shows and other private sales, needs to be closed?

[Robb]

10. An inexplicable and tangential discussion of inconsequential details

Engaged in as if the entire discussion was a failure because of unrelated minutia.

In a conversation about gun control. That never happens.

[Squinch]

11. Makes me feel like this:

[Recursion]

19. If gun shows are where they are happening, there is more we can do

If most of these are happening in people's garages, there's less we can do. I'd like to know which it is at what rate, and I fear it's mostly the latter.

[CreekDog]

17. trying to derail the thread?

how original.

[Recursion]

18. No. I want to know what percentage of private sales happen at gun shows

If it's most, that suggests a different solution from if it's very few. I hope it's "most", for that matter, because that makes it easier to control.

[CreekDog]

20. so you posted 6 times in a thread to ask that question?

[Recursion]

21. Yes, nobody seems to know, which is a shame

I dislike the term "gunshow loophole" because it suggests we know that already, which we don't seem to.

Also only three of my posts in this thread are that question.

[CreekDog]

23. "Gunshow loophole" doesn't suggest that at all

please don't derail discussion over your own personal issues that you expect everyone to share.

[sir pball]

22. My issue with the phrase "gun show"

Is that it DOES mislead a lot of people into thinking "gun shows are 100% background-check free" which then leads to absolutely idiotic laws like Oregon's that mandate background checks on all transfers...at gun shows! Any other place, private sales are still unregulated

If I were king, all sales, gun show, classifieds, BFFs, would go through an FFL and be recorded in the bound book.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Gee perhaps it is because they are

well known as the place to go to buy or sell guns outside the background check process?

Ya think maybe?

[Hoyt]

13. Except gun cultists would say that dealers at gun shows are already required to background check.

Totally ignoring fact that a bunch of they yahoos selling at gun shows are dealers -- have a table, and lay their guns out to entice yahoos -- but do not perform background checks.

I think a background check, etc., should performed even when dad dies and leaves his gun cache to the kids -- who may be drug addicts, or god knows what.

Anyone selling a gun to anyone without a check ought to be fined, imprisoned, and/or banned from ever touching a gun again.

The video simply shows that people skirt the law, and gun cultists and NRA lie and don't care.

[Recursion]

14. And if they do that they're breaking the law

Totally ignoring fact that a bunch of they yahoos selling at gun shows are dealers -- have a table, and lay their guns out to entice yahoos -- but do not perform background checks.

If a licensed dealer sells a gun to someone and does not perform a background check, he's breaking the law. Are you saying that the yahoos are de facto unlicensed dealers? This is another reason we need an ATF head, to crack down on that, but in the absence of that, making it "more illegal" won't really do much. But people also sell guns at garage sales and swap meets.

Though we both agree on this:

I think a background check, etc., should performed even when dad dies and leaves his gun cache to the kids -- who may be drug addicts, or god knows what.

I'm with you there. It's illegal for a dad to give his son beer, for that matter, so this isn't exactly new Constitutional territory.

I'm thinking of five paradigmatic ways guns are transferred; call it a spectrum.

1. Person goes to a licensed dealer and buys a gun retail
2. Person goes to a private party in a gun-show or swap-meet setting and buys a gun
3. Person buys a gun from a private party in a more casual setting (classified ad, bulletin board, etc.)
4. Person buys a gun in an alley from a black market dealer
5. Person steals a gun

Obviously no background check requirement is going to stop 4 and 5. 1 is pretty easy to control, and those controls are working well. We're talking about 2 and 3. These are situations where, for instance, states are theoretically asking for sales tax but have a compliance rate of essentially 0% for that.

Do you think there's a way to really mandate background checks on scenarios 2 and 3? I do not, which is why I lean towards requiring all transfers of firearms to be scenario 1, and go through a licensed dealer.

[Historic NY]

4. "Thats the problem & the NRA gives it cover."....

when people do this weekend after weekend around the country they are dealers, they are skirting the law.

Someone should ask Ted Cruz where he is on this.

You have the right to bear arms but you don't have the right to sell them w/o following rules and laws.

[Recursion]

6. The Senate should confirm an ATF director and untie the ATF's hands

This is exactly the sort of thing Federal law enforcement should be stinging.

[aikoaiko]

15. I think the president should do a recess appt if he thinks it will matter.

Enforcing existing laws is really a no brainer for even interim directors.

[Recursion]

16. True, but as a realistic matter a recess appointee is hobbled

And can be sandbagged by professional employees or other political appointees, and the ATF will need cooperation from a lot of other agencies to do what it needs to.