Reply #137: There are no "unlicensed" dealers

[krispos42]

The phrase "unlicensed dealers", like "assault weapon", "tax relief", "partial birth abortion", "cut and run", and "death tax" is part of controlling the language so you can control the debate. It's framing the argument on somebody's terms, and a key reasons Democrats have been losing politically the past few decades. The Republicans have a lot of brain power and organization going to "the message", and that is why they have controlled the language of politics the past thirty or forty years or so.

The phrase "unlicensed dealer" implies that the person should be licensed but isn't.


There are licensed gun dealers, private sellers, and illegal dealers. Licensed dealers are Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs), private sellers are people like you and me who sell guns once in a blue moon, and illegal dealers that do it as a business, but without the burden of being legal.

FFLs have a real or virtual storefront, and do it for a living. They can buy new guns, send and receive them by a delivery servie across the country, and must perform a background check and keep records on every transaction.

Private sellers who occasionally sell their firearms to people within their own state do not have to do any background checks or collect sales tax. Tyically this is friend-to-friend.

Illegal dealers are just that: illegal. They make their money selling guns without a license. They sell them to whoever wants one without any background checks, records, or restrictions. And the guns that they aquire to sell they don't ask any questions about, either.

Some corrupt FFLs have a nice side business in the illegal gun trade, perhaps selling used guns to select criminal associates under the table, for example.


I agree that the second idea is a good idea. The two major sources of criminal guns are theft and family/friends, so having even private transactions going through the NICS check would, I believe, cut down on a lot of guns to criminals because the excuse "Hey, I didn't know he had a record" no longer applies. As long as the fee is limited by statute to, say $20, and no record the guns make, model, or serial number is made. However, as slackmaster noted, the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to regulate intra-state commerce. So that's a problem.


Regarding the third, I do think that limiting firearm purchases to 12 per 12-month period is a good idea, as long as there is a waiver process in place where a person could put in writing a request to go past the limit for legitmate purposes. Like, say, starting a shooting range and having rental guns. This way, if a person is at a gun show and sees a few collectables he or she wants, he can do cash-and-carry right there instead of driving all over creation to pick up three rifles.