Another blow to gun owners
Toolbox
Published: October 19, 2009
A recent article on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's sting operation to expose the "gun show loophole" read like an editorial promoting gun control. In actuality, the sting exposed nothing.
Under federal law, a private seller is under no more obligation to consider a buyer's eligibility to pass a background check when making a sale at a gun show than he is in his living room or anywhere else. Neither are beauty supply houses that sell hydrogen peroxide under an obligation to ask if the buyer is going to bleach hair or make a bomb.
A gun show is a building with a collection of tables that are for rent to just about anyone. Besides guns, people sell jewelry, decorative items, books and a bunch of other things. Some are federally licensed gun dealers and some are not. The gun show promoters are under no legal obligation to determine licensing requirements, the sellers are.
What the mayor's sting is really about is shutting down all private sales of firearms and forcing them to go through someone with a federal firearms license. This would do nothing to keep criminals from stealing and selling guns to anyone. It would simply be another tax on gun owners and another blow to the right to keep and bear arms.
Peter Magoon
Randolph Center


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