They aren't selling them all at the same time, your right that most of the laws can be done with private collections anyway, the gunshow provides a venue and audience as well as allowing private sellers to pool collections in ways that other types of private sale can't. It still amounts to people legally selling a lot of new and used guns without and FFL, and I've talked to ATF people at the shows themselves, it's seen as shady but still legal, I don't know if Texas has different laws but Nevada, Idaho, New mexico, and Arizona have private sellers that often follow the gun shows around selling new and used guns, not nearly in the quantities of the FFL vendors, but enough that they are making a decent profit.farson135 said:If they are acting as dealers then you should report them to your local ATF Office.EternallyBored said:Uhh no that's why its a loophole because they are legally allowed to sell those weapons without a license, that's the whole controversy that private sellers can basically pretend to be a gun shop for a weekend and its perfectly legal in many states as long as they do it at a gun show.
I have been to hundreds of gun shows all over the US and I have never seen what you describe. The gun show I go to the most often is the Houston Gun Show (which is the 3rd largest gun show in the country) with the Austin and El Paso Gun Shows taking up 2nd and 3rd (not sure which order). If a non-FFL dealer were to act as a dealer then that would be a violation of the ATF?s rules regarding gun selling as a business. I have seen plenty of people sell their grandpa?s old shotgun or a few of their safe queens but I have never seen a dealer level private seller.
The gun show is irrelevant. I can sell off my collection at any point outside of a gun show (not all at once obviously because then I would be breaching the ATF?s rules).As for your second paragraph, seriously? You do know that thousands of people do exactly that at gunshows and it's considered perfectly legal, all you have to do is call yourself a collector or enthusiast and your instantly in the legal clear, it's not an enforcement issue, if cops tried to crackdown on it 90% of the cases would get thrown out by the judge, because again, as long as it's at a gunshow its not considered illegal, thus the "loophole" designation.
Selling 100 firearms at one time would be illegal. Hell, even if it were 100 Mosin Nagants the person would then be categorized as a dealer under the ATF?s rules. If your AG did not prosecute them then (s)he is in the wrong.Seriously I have seen the district attorney for our city down at some of the same gunshows buying from private sellers who have 100+ weapons on sale and display, its not an issue of enforcement it is currently legal to do so.
What in the fuck are you talking about? Unlicensed people do not have access to the Background Check system. We want access to it but we currently do not have it.Why is this even in question? like I said the gunshows themselves know they are doing it that's why many are cracking down and forcing unlicensed vendors to do background checks, they are hoping if they self-regulate then the government won't have to do it for them.
A simplistic way to look at it is too look at nations by gun ownership rates. If you look at the top 20 nations by gun ownership rate 11 of them are Western European.fromthepoisonwell said:Can you back this up with sources? That's an interesting claim, and would honestly change my outlook if you could solidly confirm it.Amir Kondori said:There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that people bring up on both sides of this debate, lots of statistics being used and misused, but if you look at violent crime it ends up being the worst in places with the strictest gun control laws.
Source- http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/home
You can also look at the locations of guns. The areas of the US with the highest gun ownership rates are rural areas (Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and on). Rural areas tend to have low murder rates. However, urban areas tend to have high murder rates. Urban areas also tend to have the most gun control laws. Where are the strictest laws in the US? Chicago, New York City, LA, Washington D.C., and on. Here are some numbers-
The order is by murder rate. You have state, gun ownership rate, then murder rate (2010). I took 19 states (and the District) with the highest and lowest gun ownership rates. What do we find? Of the highest gun ownership states 6 have the 10 lowest homicide rates.
Idaho 55.3 1.5
Hawaii 8.7 1.8
North Dakota 50.7 2.0
Wyoming 59.7 2.0
Massachusetts 12.6 2.7
Rhode Island 12.8 3.0
Connecticut 16.7 3.0
Montana 57.7 3.2
Alaska 57.8 3.2
South Dakota 56.6 3.6
New Jersey 12.3 3.7
New York 18.0 4.0
West Virginia 55.4 4.9
California 21.3 5.4
Arkansas 55.3 6.3
Mississippi 55.3 6.9
Alabama 51.7 7.1
Maryland 21.3 7.7
Illinois 20.2 8.4
The District 3.8 24.2
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html
http://www.ucrdatatool.gov/Search/Crime/State/StatebyState.cfm
Also-
Murder and non-negligent homicide Austin- 4.8
Murder and non-negligent homicide El Paso- 0.8
Murder and non-negligent homicide Washington D.C.- 21.9
Violent crime Austin- 475.9
Violent crime El Paso- 458.3
Violent crime Washington D.C.- 1,241.1
Population Austin-796,310
Population El Paso- 624,322
Population Washington D.C.- 601,723
Gun ownership rate of the state of Texas- 35.9
Gun ownership rate of Washington D.C.-3.8
I tried to go simplistic so that you can match what you most likely already know. Rural areas tend to have more guns than urban areas due to the fact that people in rural areas need guns for their jobs. Rural areas tend to have lower murder rates than urban areas.
As for background checks, either Texas is weird or your just not trying very hard, there are multiple third party companies in my area that have the authorization to run background checks, you set up an account with them and they will run independent background checks for you, you don't get the authorization yourself.