MAIG: When You Have Nothing Left, Scare the $hit Out of The Rubes.

Durka durka.

No matter what law you pass, the “murderer” would be able to buy a gun without a background check. Criminal, remember? Not gonna obey the law.

Opposing pointless laws has nothing to do with avoiding “inconvenience”, but rather with maintaining a meaningful rule of law. An ever-expanding list of regulations on our activities, that do nothing to actually prevent or punish crime, undermines the rule of law by making it unclear whether or not our actions are legal.

Mike, I’m not sure if you realize this or not (or if you care) but if the “loophole” that you’re so incensed about were closed a father would have to run a background check on his son before giving him a hunting rifle. The pistol I got my girlfriend for Christmas? I couldn’t give it to her without a background check. That time my buddy and I each liked the other’s rifle better… couldn’t have swapped until we ran a background check on each other.

Gun shows are not magical nirvannas where laws cease to apply. Licensed gun dealers need to run a background check no matter where they’re physically standing when they sell the gun. The “gun show loophole” is nothing but the ability for private individuals to transfer guns between themselves.

I don’t know exactly how many guns change hands this way but I’d bet it’s statistically pretty insignificant. And AQ operatives aren’t out trolling gun shows for their hardware.

Besides, all the background checks in the world don’t mean squat when the ATF is just handing guns out to known criminals anyway.

So actually, for embracing this extremely deceitful ad for an extremely deceitful policy proposal, shame on you.

Old mikeb doesn’t know any better, the good money is on him never going to a gun show in his life, much less recently.

The so called gunshow loophole is a joke. At real gunshows, which I attend regularly, there is very little person to person selling going on. Even at the largest gun shows, maybe 200 guns come into the show to be sold. Of those guns 90% at least are not guns you find at crime scenes ever.

The vast majority are hunting rifles, usually bolt action with capacity for 5 rounds or less in an internal magazine. Really hard to conceal, really unwieldy at close ranges, and lacking in rate of fire there is more than one reason these guns never show up at crime scenes.

Of the rest, most are 22 caliber rifles. Again, these are not guns you find at crime scenes. They are made for one thing, and that is target shooting or plinking as shooters know it. These rounds are not powerful enough to be useful for crime, the rifles are hard to conceal, and the guns are somewhat unwieldy at close ranges.

Again, easily nine out of ten rifles you see for sale at a gun show fall into one of the above categories. At least that has been my experience, and it is frustrating because I mostly look for older military weapons to add to my collection of historic guns. Every once in a while you do see an AK or an AR for sale, note both of them are semi-auto, you never see full auto guns being sold this way, ever. And maybe 1 or 2 of every 100 guns being privately sold at a gun show is a handgun, usually a revolver of some sort. Handguns are by far the most popular at crime scenes and by far the least privately sold at gun shows.

But wait, not finished yet. Almost every private seller I have negotiated with to buy a gun, was adamant that the sale go through one of the FFL licensed dealers at the show, in other words getting registered. Even when I had a C&R FFL they still were more comfortable with it going through a third FFL party, even if it meant less profit for them. Even if I got them to accept selling to me straight with a C&R FFL they always got nervous when I explained no NICS was necessary and backed out unless through a third party FFL holder with NICS. I can understand it, if something bad does happen with the gun (like the ATF decides to send it down Mexico way) and your name was the last one linked to it, the police are going to be paying you a not so friendly visit, which may even include swat blinding you, kicking your door down, and killing your dog in front of you and your kids.

The opposite is also true, while I have never sold a gun at a gun show, I have gone with friends who did sell one, or at least tried. Most buyers also insist that the guns go through a licensed dealer at the show. Also makes perfect sense, if you buy a gun that was stolen or used to commit a crime and for whatever reason the police find it in your possession (like say a common traffic stop while you are on your way home from the show), you are in deep crap. The best way to protect yourself is to let the law know you are buying the gun by going through a FFL dealer.

Finally, more than half of the guns that walk into a gun show with the dowel end of a big home made for sale sign stuck down the barrel, walk out of the gun show with the for sale sign still there, and on the shoulder of the same guy who walked it in. There are lots of guns at gun shows, and often you can get the same gun from one of the dealers in new or better condition for less to near what the private seller wants for it. Sometimes the dealers are willing to haggle, the private sellers typically don’t know how to haggle and look at you like you are a moron who can’t read if you ask if they would sell that WASR10 that looks like it has been through hell for $350 instead of the $750 they have written on the flag, even if you point to the same WASR10 in brand new condition sitting on a nearby table for $450.

So to recap for mikeb’s benefit, even though I suspect like all gun control advocates he is by now plugging his ears and saying “LALALALALA can’t hear you and your facts LALALALA”. The so called gun show loophole is a joke because not many guns are for sale by private individuals at a gun show, not many of the ones that are for sale are crime ready guns, not many of the ones that sell don’t go through a FFL and a NICS check, and not all of the ones that entered actually sold.

So why then are we so opposed to closing the so called gun show loophole you ask? Because the gun control freaks pushing it don’t aren’t really after the private sales at gun shows. The ones really into it have already done research hoping to prove what they thought to be the case, that being that thousands of private sales of handguns and militarized guns happen every hour at every gun show, and came to the realization that isn’t even remotely close to the truth. They want to scare everyone who hasn’t been to a gun show into continuing to think as they did that thousands of guns are being transferred without a trace at ever gun show and then going out and being used in crimes. And they are fueling that fear so they can use it to ban all private transfers because they know this will make gun owners lives more difficult.

I already bought rifles for both of my boys, one is 4 the other is due in about a month. I plan to give them the rifles when they graduate from high school. Both are over 5 feet in length, hold at most five rounds in an internal magazine, and are legal for hunting. They are both K98s, which was the main rifle of the Germans in WWI, and though functional are really meant more as collector’s items. No K98 has ever been used in the commission of a crime, though they are well over 100 years old and fairly numerous in the US. Yet you (mikeb) and your cronies, want to ban me from being able to say “congrats on your graduation, here is a little piece of history I have collected and saved for you, I will hold onto it until you are out of college and in a home of your own”. Wishing instead for me to have to say “Son, though I have known you your whole life, I can’t give you your graduation present until we both go find someone willing to do a background check on you and make sure you aren’t really some arab terrorist. Sorry about that, some guy who is aafraid of the boogeyman named mikeb made it this way so his mamby pamby butt could sleep better at night knowing this moment was ruined for us.”

Seriously mikeb, I hope there is something you either are now or become interested in and enjoy doing with your family that some vocal minority wants to take away from you, so you can see what it is like to be in our shoes.

You fail the Jews in the attic test because with background checks, the government can simply try and declare as many people “invalids” as they can even though they have never been a danger to themselves or to others.

The “terror watchlist” comes to mind…

All right, how this will preclude murderer from picking up weapon on black market?
We have quite complicated system of receiving license for weapon. We are not allowed to own handguns. Do you think “bad guys” follow laws and do not use firearms at all and handguns in particular?