The gun-show loophole should be closed, and closing it would prevent some criminals from obtaining weapons.
What "loophole?" If you are classified by the ATF as a dealer you must have a federal firearms license. Background checks are mandatory. You can't order a gun off of the Internet and have it shipped to your home; it must go through an FFL. No FFL is going to jeopardize their hard-won license for a criminal sale. You may not purchase a firearm from across state lines as dealers are barred via the Gun Control Act of 1968 from selling or transferring firearms sans FLL across state lines.
You may purchase a firearm from an occasional seller, not a dealer (differences matter) in your state of residence if you are legally allowed to own a firearm (no domestic violence record, no felonies, no drug use, et al.) -- meaning you are not a prohibited possessor oreven suspected of being a prohibited possessor. If you are a prohibited possessor and you buy a gun regardless you're breaking the law and will be charged with a crime. If a person knowingly sells a prohibited possessor a firearm they are breaking the law and will be charged with a crime. If they claim cluelessness they still may be charged depending on the results of the investigation. That's not a loophole, that's a criminal act. If your driver's license is suspended due to a DUI and yet you continue to drive, that's not a loophole in the law, it is a criminal act. What anti-Second Amendment advocates mean when they use the rhetorical scam term "loophole" is that they want the federal government to treat every single American as a federal firearms dealer, meaning they would have to establish a national, quasi-registry (current law prevents the federal government from compiling a registry based off of the NICS information) to make it work and make your husband doubly-answerable to the ATF if he legally buys your son his first hunting rifle.
Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho, Dylann Roof, Chris Mercer, and James Holmes did not obtain guns through private purchases (Lanza's first crime was a felony -- stealing his mother's unsecured firearms which by itself is actionable considering his mental state). In each case their families, the state, or the background check system failed. Cho was adjudicated mentally unfit and should not have been able to purchase a gun.
WaPo: Yes, We Want Your Guns 8 danaloeschradio |
