Until we close the private sale loophole, gun laws do t mean shit.
This really isn’t the loophole that people think it is. If you buy new firearms with the intent to sell it, you’re committing a felony. There was an airport executive killed in a gunfight with the BATF just this past week over just this (the BATF was serving a warrant because he was alleged to have been buying firearms with the intent of reselling them, despite not being an FFL holder and doing background checks; he opened fire on them, and predictably did not survive). This is the essence of what a straw purchase is.
Yes, but straw purchase laws are almost impossible to enforce. Buying with the intent to sell to a prohibited buyer is illegal, but good luck proving it.
Requiring all transfers to go through a background check makes it much more difficult. And it doesn’t even have to involve an FFL - just either open NICS up to the public. Allow someone wanting to buy a gun to generate a code that’s good for X days that they can give to a seller that can be verified along with their name in place of a background check.
It protects privacy by not allowing checks on random people, but does allow for background checks for private sales.
I used to work in gun sales, and the reality is that I was probably involved in a few straws. I actively tried to stop them, and even caught a few people trying it, but if someone just came in, passed a background check, and bought a gun I wouldn’t have known any better. It was the people with the sketchy friend nodding and shaking their heads as I went from product to product or people exchanging cash on camera in front of the store that we caught. People who weren’t idiots about it had no trouble.
