Do Gypsy Gun Dealers Hurt Us?

[gunn]

Are the people whom I mentioned breaking the law? Absolutely, they are. I have read and reread the "big book" from BATF dealing with what they are doing. The selling off of a private collection is a very narrow ruling, dealing with firearms that were gathered for the private use of the owner for whatever use he puts them to. When and if he decides to sell, he may sell them face to face to another resident of his state, PROVIDED that he is not breaking state laws. Maryland, for instance, allows NO hand gun transfers except through a Maryland license handgun dealer. If I am going to give my son a WWII war trophy Luger in Maryland, I must take the Luger to a Maryland licensed hand gun dealer and have him log it into his books. Then, my son can go to the shop and have the Luger logged out to him. Last time I heard, most Maryland dealers were charging $75.00 as a fee for handling the transfer, which I consider criminal usery, but what is one to do but pay IF one wants to abide by the law.
Getting back to the selling off a private collection : As soon as the private seller acquires more guns to add to his collection and begins to sell them off, he is on very shaky ground, as it may be shown in court that he acquired the newer purchases strictly to resell same.
Steven

Welcome to the forum, Steven. This is an interesting debate but I am a bit confused by this post:
Q: You cited that Maryland law required an FFL to be involved in the transfer of a handgun. This is very similar to CA law which requires the same except if from parent/grandparent to child.

Here in Florida, I regularly attend flea markets. Lately there has been an increase in the dealers that set-up every week and sell firearms. I have asked everyone that I see if he maintains any sort of license to sell firearms. None do! Nearly all claim that they do not need any license to sell firearms in the state of Florida.

However, in your original post, you complained about transfers of handguns in Florida. How is that applicable?

http://www.nraila.org/statelawpdfs/MDSL.pdf - says an FFL is required to sell a handgun
http://www.nraila.org/statelawpdfs/FLSL.pdf - says nothing about requiring a private party to use an FFL to sell to another private party provided they are not a criminal yada yada.

---
As for your comments about "being a snitch", I'm surprised. This is the same kind of philosophy that keeps ghetto areas ghetto. If you BELIEVE a crime is occuring, it's your DUTY in a civil society to report it. That is what makes our society work (vs decending into anarchy). You may call it snitching, I call it prevention of the d-bags taking over. People conducting themselves illegally potentially harms the rest of us law abiding citizens. After all, like it or not, politicians will use the "bad eggs" as examples to pass even more laws that only law abiding citizens will honor.

I believe you would agree that we here in CA are subject to more firearms laws and restrictions than the average American. For the most part (except for the occassional troll), almost everyone here does everything we can to stay on the right side of the law -- hence all the discussions of bullet buttons, "funny" shaped grips, 10/30 magazines, retarded barrel extensions, etc.

I'm sure you can just as easily buy a handgun w/o any papers with cash money even in anti-gun SF.... but that has no bearing on whether or not such a florida handgun transaction is legal (as a one-time incident), whether or not this guy regularly does it is legal (I also agree that this is very suspicious and likely they are breaking the law here), and finally whether or not you should report it (IMO, you should).

BTW, unlike the CAL-DOJ (whom I've called a time or two), my conversations with the local BATFE folks were actually pretty friendly.

-g

[bigcalidave]

I may report crimes I see, but if its a crime I don't believe should exist, I'm never going to be the one calling it in. I'm sure if the OP witnessed a shooting he would call it in, but watching someone operate outside of some BS regulation? I'm no witness...

[SDPatriot]

As long as this guy isn't knowingly selling to prohibited posessors I have no problem with what he is doing. Besides, I've noticed most, not all FFL's think they are doing you a favor by selling you a gun at their inflated prices. When I lived in Arizona I was getting great deals from private sellers with no sales tax. Now if he's buying guns at a store one day and selling them at a flea market the next that's a problem. Either way I think it's good the FFL's have some competition. Like Larry Kudlow says " free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity".

[Flopper]

My issues are how do I know if I bought a stolen gun or one that was actually used in a crime somewhere.
Nicki

Uhh, well actually you wouldn't know if it was used in a crime even if it went through an FFL, so how exactly would that help?

As with every other gun law, having to go through an FFL is merely an impediment to RKBA.

[roysclockgun]

This morning, after seeing unlicensed dealers sell guns for cash with no paperwork, I wanted to vent. Primarilly I wanted to vent because I regret that by holding an 01FFL, I have turned over some of my rights of privacy to the BATF.
Those guys selling guns out the door for cash and creating no paperwork are probably having more fun than I do AND turning a better margin of profit. Any of their sales that result in a felon owning another firearm is simply less than a drop in the ocean of untracked firearms in which this country is swimming.
Regardless of what anyone may think of me, I am not going to be the one to rat them out. In truth, I do not care THAT much. I have been there watching them enough to be certain that they are not marketing firearms according to BATF regs, but maybe the little devil on my shoulder says :"Good on them", for thumbing their noses at the intrusive BATF and all the Feds who have ruined firearms trading for the rest of us!
Anyway, I did get to vent and you CA. guys gave more feedback that I anticipated.
I am over the venting, so back to GunsAmerica to make some profits of my own.
Best,
Steven

[CHS]

I am over the venting, so back to GunsAmerica to make some profits of my own.
Best,
Steven

Steven, please feel free to stick around.

Earlier when I asked why you had come to a CA forum it was only out of curiosity. We welcome everyone here

[Shotgun Man]

[...]

---
As for your comments about "being a snitch", I'm surprised. This is the same kind of philosophy that keeps ghetto areas ghetto. If you BELIEVE a crime is occuring, it's your DUTY in a civil society to report it. That is what makes our society work (vs decending into anarchy). You may call it snitching, I call it prevention of the d-bags taking over. People conducting themselves illegally potentially harms the rest of us law abiding citizens. After all, like it or not, politicians will use the "bad eggs" as examples to pass even more laws that only law abiding citizens will honor.

[...]


-g

It is not as though he a unique witness. The police must already know about this and don't care.

[cmth]

Dialing 1-800-ATF-GUNS right now!!

This is an outrage! How dare people act like free individuals who may do whatever they wish with their own property! Where do they think they are, a free country? In my America, we have to obtain government permission to wipe our own backsides, and we like it! I am alerting the authorities at once.

[N6ATF]

[the_quark]

I am alerting the authorities at once.

Citizen! Do you have authorization to do that?

[v/dBrink]

This morning, after seeing unlicensed dealers sell guns for cash with no paperwork, I wanted to vent. Primarilly I wanted to vent because I regret that by holding an 01FFL, I have turned over some of my rights of privacy to the BATF.
Those guys selling guns out the door for cash and creating no paperwork are probably having more fun than I do AND turning a better margin of profit. Any of their sales that result in a felon owning another firearm is simply less than a drop in the ocean of untracked firearms in which this country is swimming.
Regardless of what anyone may think of me, I am not going to be the one to rat them out. In truth, I do not care THAT much. I have been there watching them enough to be certain that they are not marketing firearms according to BATF regs, but maybe the little devil on my shoulder says :"Good on them", for thumbing their noses at the intrusive BATF and all the Feds who have ruined firearms trading for the rest of us!
Anyway, I did get to vent and you CA. guys gave more feedback that I anticipated.
I am over the venting, so back to GunsAmerica to make some profits of my own.
Best,
Steven

hello Steve

I know Steve from a ways back. He knows me under my more ~Dutch~ name .

Steve - some of what you complain about is called capitalism. You bemoan their lack of a ffl but mostly you're complaining that they're making money and you're not. The problem this creates is it causes finger pointing and feeds the federal troll.

In the ultimate treatise not yet written on the history, intent and purpose of gunshows in the Unites States you'll find the original intent was to cut out the middleman, who in this case is the "dealer", the 01FFL. Americans of libertarian bent, before anybody knew how to spell 'libertarian', preferred buying and selling guns among themselves without the interdiction of the Revenuers, the Treasury boys. You don't have to go too far back into American history to find where this animosity began and how it tracked itself through our history. (actually... that would be the little issue about whiskey in Carlise, PA when Big George sent his boys in to clear up the misunderstanding...).

Those who bemoan "unlicensed" gunshow dealers are, IMO, punks of the state. You're a closet statist who believes a crime is anything the state says it is. Today it's legal, tomorrow it's a crime. Laws are not meant to free humanity, they are meant to enslave humanity. Those who preach "law abiding" are usually conformists who demand everyone else conform, too, or else...

My historical knowledge of Steve is that he's not like this. He's coming at this from the perspective of somebody who follows the rules and that's pretty much as far as he sees things. I know he doesn't get into all the peripheral debate like I'm doing now and none of what I'm saying here is directed at him personally. I do hope he sees some of the issues that go far beyond just selling guns at a gunshow.

The Brady bunch has been on this gunshow loophole thing for a while now and they continue with letters-to-the-editor and opinion pieces coast to coast non-stop. A great deal of what they write are ordinary lies but being the good little soldiers they are they don't think for themselves they just do as they're told and they write what they're told to write based on their little talking-points memos they receive from Brady. Their purpose is to convince the unknowing citizen/voter that all manner of illegal firearms are being sold freely to anyone anytime for any purpose. They will go so far as to claim machine guns and machine gun conversion kits are openly sold at gunshows without any oversight. That is patently false.

You will usually loose the fight when you defend against attacks of the enemy. Too many of you do this, try to counter-argue with a leftist when the leftist is usually superior in using the tactics of insurgency propaganda. The superior method of "killing" the messenger (term used figuratively) is to flank their attack with a counter-attack. Make _them_ the defenders, not the aggressors. (read Mao, Che & Karl to learn the mindset).

I'm old enough to remember the Great Western Gunshows when they were at the fairgrounds on Atlantic Blvd in East L.A., before Pomona.

January 1, 1969 is the day America was castrated. That was the first day of implementation of the Gun Control Act of 1968. That was the grandfather of this whole "gunshow loophole" BS that we have today. Gunshows were all about leaving the "dealer" outside in the cold (where they belong!). The use of the 4473 was the first innocuous step in reducing liberty among gun owners and those who wanted to buy and sell guns among themselves.

There was a time when buying and selling guns AS A HOBBY was an acceptable part of American gun culture. It was really a large part of what is a lifestyle more than hobby. Building collections was enabled by buying & selling guns from your collection. A hundred guns a year? To many that isn't a lot of guns to move around in order to finance a step up in your collection if you collection was Colt SAA or U.S. 1795 muskets (as Steve once owned).

Colt, Lugers, Borchardts were/are high dollar items. In the golden years of the 1950s up until 1968 there were abundant used and collectible firearms available that you could make some bucks to make your collection better. Talk to the boys who collect/ed Thompson submachineguns. BTW, there is nothing immoral or illegal about collecting submachineguns or machine guns. In free states Americans still own and shoot all manner of machineguns and submachine guns, some sub-guns with silencers. (imagine!)

brainwashed - "subjected to intensive forced indoctrination resulting in the rejection of old beliefs and acceptance of new ones...".

Forced via threats of imprisonment for violating the "law". What is now illegal that you did as a kid?

Gun dealers, 01FFL, as exclusive channels for the transfer of a firearm from one private citizen to another violates every argument of liberty you can come up with. Those dealer organizations who promote these "dealer only" laws should be dragged out in the street and horse whipped and at the least boycotted until they fold up and blow away. They are not our friends.

We will loose the fight due to you who think it's ok-fine to have gunshows be the domain of 01FFL only. That is 100% diametrical to the history and purpose of American gunshows. Gunshows are the conservative bastion of traditional Americana. Gunshows free of government interference are worth fighting for.

Don't tread on my gunshow!

[Kynoch]

It would interesting to see how these guys got supplied. I don't believe most legitimate distributors like Davidsons would sell to anyone without an FFL. So do they have an FFL, book the guns as inventory upon receipt and then do a transaction to "sell" it to themselves or a friend? Each one would still require an insta-check, right? Then again if they prices are high they probably just pass the expense on.

If their prices are high then they are probably catering to those who don't want to be insta-checked. I don't think it would take a BATF long to bust someone like this is they were not using a loophole...

[Kynoch]

Those who bemoan "unlicensed" gunshow dealers are, IMO, punks of the state. You're a closet statist who believes a crime is anything the state says it is. Today it's legal, tomorrow it's a crime. Laws are not meant to free humanity, they are meant to enslave humanity. Those who preach "law abiding" are usually conformists who demand everyone else conform, too, or else...

Good grief...

[cmth]

Good grief...

A bit of dissonance in your cognition, eh?

[roysclockgun]

v/dBrink aka Dutchman wrote : "Steve - some of what you complain about is called capitalism. You bemoan their lack of a ffl but mostly you're complaining that they're making money and you're not. The problem this creates is it causes finger pointing and feeds the federal troll."

Good to hear from you Dutch.
In terms of nailing me, you have done it! If you read all my posts here, you have seen that I have no intentions of being a whistle blower on these guys at the flea market, or anywhere else. Secondly, the flea market venue, here in Volusia County, is a big step down from gun shows, in terms of costs to the concessionaires, which may be irrelevent to you, but to me simply means that the vast majority of firearms sellers that I see at flea markets are on the sleazy side to begin with.
You are also correct in stating that I play by the rules and at my age, I probably will not stop trying to do that. I am a capitalist who does get angry at other capitalists who illegally cut corners that I am afraid to risk cutting, because I do not want to have my collection seized, nor lose my 01FFL. I no longer need to generate cash by dealing in firearms, but I still have a passion to do so. I will likely continue to buy and sell firearms (even to CA.) as long as I am drawing breath.
Dutch,you are also correct in your assessment that I don't go to deeply into railing against laws that are in place. I likely would've not been one of the ones to go on the ships in Boston harbor and throw the tea overboard!
Perhaps I can be forgiven for being critical of the hucksters at the flea market, or maybe not. That said, I have generally noted that they know very little of the firearms that they sell and voice a lot of BS when I have asked them questions. One dealer had 7mm-08 ammo that he said "fit" an old 7x57mm Mauser that he was selling! Having them give me dangerous info has happened a fair number of tmes, and they do not care to be corrected in their errors of facts. So, they not only operate below the legal RADAR screen, but they are dangerous. Another of them had an '03 Springfield marked "as is", and it was the only piece out of about twenty that was marked "as is". When I asked him what was wrong with the rifle, he claimed "nothing". When I examined the rifle, the barrel was bent to the point of being a danger to whomever may have tried to fire it using standard issue 30-06 cartridges. So, I realize here that I am throwing a lot into the mix that I had not previously addressed but the dislike of the flea market gun sellers is just not based on my jealousy that they are getting away with not paying the costs of operation that I pay. It is based on a number of negative, dangerous factors that I have encountered when I speak to these sellers. Add to that the fact that not one of them holds any sort of FFL. If the flea markets sales were drawing buyers who could support sales made by FFL holders, then some of the dealers would, indeed, be FFL holders. Why is that? My answer is that the flea market (I am only addressing this Volusia flea market) approaches being a black market operation when it comes to firearms sales and legitimate FFL holders avoid that gray area of gun sales.
Central Florida and especially Volusia County, where I live, is depressed economically, even more than many other parts of FL. I don't doubt that I will see more and more of the same types of gun sales that are accomplished outside the law, simply because the sellers need to do whatever they can do to earn a living. I just do not want to be involved in buying or selling from their tables when the law does catch up with them.
Dutch, if the cruffler list is still going, send me the address. I want to twist some tails again! We always had great conversations over how many of them would really "go down fighting" with their concealed carry, if push came to shove. Here, I run into a lot of gents carrying, but when I asked them to meet me at the range and practice, they never have the time to do that. The term "drugstore cowboy" comes to mind! Before long, we will see another Bernhard Goetz emerge onto the front page. <8^))
Best,
Steve Ashe