All gun sales by licensed dealers including at gun shows are background checked. There are no loopholes. That is a Democrat party lie. When they talk about "universal " background checks. They are talking about an individual not being allowed to sell his gun to another individual without a background check.
It's not a lie, but it is hyperbole. If the intent is that a federal background check is made for all gun sales, the "loophole" is that the requirement is levied only on licensed dealers, not on individuals. An individual does not have to make a background check selling a personal firearm to another individual.
There is an unknown point at which the Feds will decide that an individual is engaged in gun sales as a business and check for his license. It depends on a number of factors of activity. Courts have upheld convictions for dealing without a license when as few as two firearms were sold, or when only one or two transactions took place, when other factors were also present.
As a practical matter, few individuals who want to sell only one or two personal firearms go to the expense of setting up a booth in a gun show. I suspect that setting up a booth at a gun show may be one of the factors that draws the attention of the Feds. Pretty much, those selling guns at a gun show are licensed dealers, and they will be doing background checks. So it's hyperbole to claim that there is a huge number of guns being sold by private individuals at gun shows without background checks.
However, inasmuch as people going to gun shows are likely to be people in the market to buy a gun, I'd expect there is more chance of finding an individual in the gun show parking lot trying to sell a personal gun than in the parking lot of JC Penney.
But the "gun show loophole" is as much hyperbole as claiming individually armed citizens are the best protection against mass shootings.
I have an idea for a workable compromise. Tell me what you think.
So here is my compromise. Individuals who want to purchase firearms purchase a yearly background check ID card from the government. Like $50 per year. Now this would have to be voluntary to be constitutional. So there would have to be incentive to get people to voluntarily get an ID and private sellers to only sell their firearms to a person who has the ID. The incentive would be sellers, by law, would receive greatly decreased civil liabilities, if the person they sell a gun to commits a crime with the gun. Right now as it stands. Private sellers can be subjected to all kinds of civil liabilities if the gun they sold to an individual is used in the commission of a crime. If sued they basically have to prove they are not guilty of knowingly selling a firearm to an individual who was going to use it in the commission of a crime. This is wrong and unconstitutional but it is the way it is now. Changing the civil law to: Now the one filing the lawsuit against the seller has to prove the seller is guilty of selling the gun to someone they know would use it to commit a crime if that person who committed the crime had the background check ID. That would kill to birds with one stone. It would bring civil law back under constitutional guidelines of innocent until proven guilty and it would be the defacto enactment of much needed tort reform. Criminal liabilities would remain about the same.
So that would be a great incentive for legal, private gun sales from one individual to another to use a background check system. The government would have no knowledge of the private transfer of a firearm from one individual to another. Which is the way it should be. There would be and could not be a data base compiled by the government with this system. Persons selling a firearm could not be held civilly liable for a crime committed by the buyer who used the gun unless the government or greedy lawyer could prove to a jury from a criminal law standard that they are guilty of knowingly selling the firearm to an individual who would commit a crime with it. Civil law would remain the same for individuals who sold the firearm to a non-card carrying individuals. If dragged into court they would have to basically prove they are innocent. Wrong but that is the standard for civil law.
Two issues right off the top of my head:
1. How will the system retract the purchase license for a recent offense? Will there be an online database where the seller can check the immediate
bona fides of the proffered license? That should be the easy answer, but it's going to have to be done.
2. No court at any level is going to roll over on legislation that takes torts out of their hands. It's been tried before--that was the reason Hawaii and other states went to no-fault insurance...under the premise that they could prevent people from suing whenever they felt they had suffered an unfair loss. The courts nixed that idea. "Every person gets his day in court" is the reason they exist. For instance, even if a criminal court proved a man innocent of murder, he can still be financially broken by the the following civil suit. That can't be legislated away.
I personally have no problem with requiring all gun sales to be on consignment through a licensed dealer who makes all the necessary background checks.
