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Old January 11, 2018, 02:03 PM   #26
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So, the failure of the operation to "prove" that vast numbers of criminals are using the internet to get all manner or firearms delivered to their door without the encumbrance of having to obey federal law means that the anti's can't/won't use the results to further their agenda.

And the thinking part of the country recognizes that if the illegal purchaser does nothing to intimate that they are an illegal purchaser, then they will be able to buy a gun, so, the Fed failure means nothing, in that regard, either.

Personally, I'd rather see the Fed waste their time, and my tax money on things like this, rather than on "allowing" (some say "requiring") guns to walk into Mexico, in the hope of tracing them, once they do... at least one death resulted from that fiasco. (Fast & Furious turned out to be half-fast, and stupid )
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Old January 11, 2018, 05:02 PM   #27
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Originally Posted by 44 AMP
Personally, I'd rather see the Fed waste their time, and my tax money on things like this, rather than on "allowing" (some say "requiring") guns to walk into Mexico, in the hope of tracing them, once they do... at least one death resulted from that fiasco. (Fast & Furious turned out to be half-fast, and stupid )
Correction ... at least one death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent resulted from that fiasco. I think it's well established that numerous deaths of "civilians" in Mexico have been attributed to the F&F guns.
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Old January 11, 2018, 09:50 PM   #28
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I figured "at least one" covered it...
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Old January 11, 2018, 10:58 PM   #29
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It does, gramatically -- but it also sounds like we don't already know there were actually a lot more than one.
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Old January 13, 2018, 08:45 PM   #30
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Why did they get scammed? My guess is they were intentionally dealing with the shadiest people out there in an attempt to find ones who would sell to them.
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Old January 14, 2018, 02:21 PM   #31
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My singular problem with this "news" and any conclusions is the fact the BATF was obligated to disclose, in some way, the buyer was a "prohibited person"

I know it has been previously stated that this is NOT how a bad actor would behave in a internet purchase

Any rational person knows that firearms are purchased every day from private sellers, on line or person to person by prohibited persons.

There is no practical way to prevent such sales unless every seller was required to process a 4473

I have bought and sold over 50 firearms over the years...I have no personal idea if any I sold to were truly NOT prohibited... I suspect not because most guns went to folks I knew ---but a few went to total strangers who could have just lied to me when I asked their age and status.......personal note---I was never comfortable selling to complete stranger...... so have a policy for my sales, that requires a buyer to know some one that I also know

Same with many guns I bought...the old guy selling me a low cost Win 94 30-30 had no idea if I was or was not prohibited....took my cash gave me the rifle

IMO---- this BATF experiment, over 2 years, was a grand waste of time that no rational conclusion can be attributed to

I hate to say it, but the anti gunners are correct...any one can easily buy a firearm any day

Second part of my career's was Army Acquisition Testing as a Test Officer...designing and implementing TESTS tests

If I want to prove gun sellers were BASICALLY a stand up bunch who could be trusted to follow the law and NOT sell to "prohibited Persons" ... what the BATF did was proper and conclusions predictable IMO

BUT If I wanted to support the Anti Gunner theory that anyone any time can buy a gun...no matter their status... my on line purchasers would LIE and pretend to be every day Joe with a bunch of bucks to spend....

of course for the conclusion to be valid I would need to employ actual "prohibited persons" for the experiment so I could conclude how easy it is for such a person to make a deal and gain possession

I personally do not subscribe to any set of laws or processes that can keep any 0~100% reliability of preventing bad actors from possessing fire arms....there is no practical way to control it

I am always curious about the density of Firearms in possession relative to the general 350 Million+ population

My personal sphere of friends and acquaintances seem to have an average weapons count over 10 hand guns and rifles-with very few having zero

Hell I have some ultra liberal family members who have fire arms
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Old January 14, 2018, 03:54 PM   #32
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my on line purchasers would LIE and pretend to be every day Joe with a bunch of bucks to spend
Didn't your on line purchasers have to pick the gun up at an FFL? Did you ship directly to the buyer?

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Old January 14, 2018, 05:56 PM   #33
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Originally Posted by fredvon4
There is no practical way to prevent such sales unless every seller was required to process a 4473
Filling out a 4473 doesn't prove anything. Anyone can lie on a 4473.

The Texas church shooter filled out 4473s and underwent background checks on at least two of his firearms. The "system" didn't stop him, because the "system" didn't work. Did he lie when he checked the box that said he had not been convicted of a felony? Maybe -- or maybe because it was a military court martial he didn't think it qualified as a felony. We can't ask him, so we'll never know.

And it doesn't matter. What matters is that blind reliance on a piece of paper is not foolproof.
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Old January 14, 2018, 06:42 PM   #34
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"...blind reliance..."

(be it paper, electronic, or anything else)

Is the easiest way to get lied to.

Haven't we all been given enough examples of that in this life?

The only way to know when your being lied to is to know the truth going in. It does not matter what the subject is. Firearms or anything else.
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Old January 14, 2018, 08:33 PM   #35
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my on line purchasers would LIE and pretend to be every day Joe with a bunch of bucks to spend....
And your guys would spend a bunch of bucks, and get a bunch of guns, without getting the sellers to break any laws. If the task is to catch people selling guns in violation of the law, that's not the way to go about it.

Take a look at what the law actually says, and remember it was written in a slightly less paranoid era than the present. The law does not require the seller to see proof the buyer is not a prohibited person. Indeed such proof cannot exist, only the opposite.

So long as the seller does not "know or reasonably believe", they are selling to a prohibited person, they aren't breaking the law. The lying buyer is, but the seller is not, as absent proof or a reasonable suspicion, the assumption is the buyer is not a prohibited person.

That's why agents had to drop hints /or outright tell the sellers they were prohibited, otherwise there would be no crime to charge the seller with, had the sale gone through.
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Old January 15, 2018, 05:26 AM   #36
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5 or 6 years ago a local guy was selling firearms at shows and out of his house. I don't know what turned the BATF onto him but an agent and a prohibited person went to his house. While the prohibited person was buying a pistol the agent asked the seller if he realized the buyer was a prohibited person? The seller told the agent more or less, "I don't care who he is as long as he has the money."

A day or so later the seller was arrested, firearms and accessories seized, bank accounts seized, etc, etc, etc. He's still in prison as far as I know. The BATF also arrested his son and exwife and held the son at least for a week or so before releasing him. The son may have lived with him but the exwife hadn't for several years.

They also interrogated one of his friends who had set up with him at some of the shows. They scared that guy so bad he turned over all his firearms, reloading equipment, etc to the BATF.
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Old January 15, 2018, 12:32 PM   #37
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Mag1911 that seller is obviously an idiot or just plain stupid

I have never knowingly sold to a prohibited person but did have a few buyers who did not give me a solid warm fuzzy so I just stopped selling to complete strangers.... also never sold across state lines, all sales semi local...sometimes I have met the buyer at a mutual location that I picked and always took a Armed friend to prevent me from begin robbed

I was selling a motorcycle some years ago...guy came, kicked tires, asked for test ride...OK then he was gone... bugger just simply drove away with my bike...police never recovered it...Insurance did pay

Had a dear buddy who had a guy over to look at a rifle he was selling...guy handles the arm, opens bolt, slips in a 30-06 cartridge and stole all of his stuff at gun point

Government or other institutions doing studies or stings or Fast n Furious non-sense are basically wasting our time and tax dollars for no real rational conclusions

I sure wish they would put more effort into voter fraud
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Old January 16, 2018, 03:05 PM   #38
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I sure wish they would put more effort into voter fraud
You and I both.
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Old January 16, 2018, 05:16 PM   #39
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My other thread was closed but I can not find answers to my questions there so here are the questions I was asking.



1. If the sellers mentioned in the report had accepted money and sent the firearm to the FFL and the buyer was subsequently unable to pass a background check what liability does the seller have if any for selling to a prohibited person? Does knowing the person is not allowed to own a firearm or has concerns about the legality of owning a firearm change anything?
2. In the situation above if the seller had already received payment for the firearm what is the legal expectation in terms of the received funds and what legal responsibility does the FFL have to return the firearm to the original seller?
3. Again in the situation above does the buyer who failed the back ground check have any legal responsibility to ensure the FFL returns the firearm to the original seller?
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Old January 18, 2018, 02:33 PM   #40
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1. If the sellers mentioned in the report had accepted money and sent the firearm to the FFL and the buyer was subsequently unable to pass a background check what liability does the seller have if any for selling to a prohibited person? Does knowing the person is not allowed to own a firearm or has concerns about the legality of owning a firearm change anything?
2. In the situation above if the seller had already received payment for the firearm what is the legal expectation in terms of the received funds and what legal responsibility does the FFL have to return the firearm to the original seller?
3. Again in the situation above does the buyer who failed the back ground check have any legal responsibility to ensure the FFL returns the firearm to the original seller?
Excellent questions.

To #1, I can speculate that if the seller insists that they ship to an FFL, knowing that the FFL will conduct a NICS check or otherwise screen for prohibited person status, they will not be in trouble for making the sell. Even if "hints" were dropped during the conversation leading up to the sale. Now if the buyer straight up said "I can't have a gun, I'm a felon," and the seller does it anyway? I don't know. I don't think anyone could really answer that question for certain but the prosecutor who would have to prosecute it.

For question 2: if the seller vocalizes in some way (preferably with documentation) that "all sales are final" I suspect the buyer would be out his money. Not 100% on this.

For question 3: I doubt it. Especially if he's already paid and "all sales are final."

For all questions, they would depend on specific circumstances and best answered by an attorney with all the details. I provided my layman perspective so my advice is worth what you paid for it. I tried to preface my responses with "I speculate, I suspect, I doubt." I am not speaking with authority.
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Old January 18, 2018, 02:43 PM   #41
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For answers you can count on, you need a lawyer. Common sense and the law are not always 100% congruent.

I would point out that if the buyer cannot take delivery of the gun, then no sale has taken place. (common sense) If that is the case, legally, the FFL must ship your gun back to you (for which he can charge you) and you should (common sense) return the attempted purchaser's money.

HOWEVER, since the attempted purchase might be a crime, different legal rules might apply. Both commercial law and firearms law are involved and if you are facing this situation, you absolutely need QUALIFIED legal advice, not well intentioned internet advice.

Good Luck!
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Old January 18, 2018, 04:00 PM   #42
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Things always get complicated. Some felons can legally own a firearm. I shoot with a convicted felon who has had civil rights restored but not been pardoned.
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Old January 19, 2018, 07:43 AM   #43
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Originally Posted by 44 AMP
I would point out that if the buyer cannot take delivery of the gun, then no sale has taken place. (common sense) If that is the case, legally, the FFL must ship your gun back to you (for which he can charge you) and you should (common sense) return the attempted purchaser's money.

HOWEVER, since the attempted purchase might be a crime, different legal rules might apply. Both commercial law and firearms law are involved and if you are facing this situation, you absolutely need QUALIFIED legal advice, not well intentioned internet advice.
Some of these questions are probably very dependent on individual circumstances. As to the seller, the law prohibits making a sale to someone the seller knows or has reason to believe is a prohibited person. However, as far as I know (I am not an attorney) the law doesn't spell out that a seller must make any particular proactive effort to determine this. If the seller makes the sale contingent on transferring through an FFL, then I think the seller would be presumed to have proceeded subject to the belief that the buyer expected to pass the background check and complete the transaction.

As to what would happen to the gun if the seller doesn't pass the NICS, what we know is that the gun is not the FFL's property. Presumably, if he can't transfer it to the [former] buyer, he should then ship it back to the seller. Properly, I think the would-be buyer is the party who should be responsible for the return shipping cost. However, since the would-be buyer probably won't be willing to pay for that, the seller would likely end up having to eat that cost if he wanted to get his gun back. I think the seller would then be justified in deducting that cost from any refund he sends to the would-be buyer.

But, as noted ... I am not a lawyer.
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Old January 19, 2018, 08:24 AM   #44
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When a firearm is sent to an FFL, is that not a 'transfer' of the physical item that would essentially mean that the FFL at that point is now the owner? When an online transaction occurs, would this mean that the seller gets their money from the FFL? Perhaps only after the firearms is then resold (re transferred) to the intended buyer?

I have only purchased from FFL's and have never sold or transferred through them like this, so I'm not really sure how that part of it works.
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Old January 19, 2018, 10:48 AM   #45
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44AMP


You said:
"And your guys would spend a bunch of bucks, and get a bunch of guns, without getting the sellers to break any laws. If the task is to catch people selling guns in violation of the law, that's not the way to go about it."

OH yes sir I totally agree if the sting was designed to CATCH sellers to prosecute for selling to prohibited persons

BUT ----if they (BATF) were simply trying to establish the premise that Any Prohibited Person can EASILY buy a firearm; ON Line, or at a Gun show, or from some guys garage....

I think the answer is obvious... at least to me it is
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Old January 19, 2018, 12:04 PM   #46
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When a firearm is sent to an FFL, is that not a 'transfer' of the physical item that would essentially mean that the FFL at that point is now the owner?
This is a yes and no kind of thing, because of the way the laws are written. Yes, in the physical possession sense, and no in the legal ownership sense.

Words matter. Between the seller (owner) and the buyer, it's a sale. But through the FFL it's a transfer, both ways. And like everything else it seems, the words sale and transfer have definitions in law that may not be exactly the same as those used in daily conversation.

The buyer doesn't pay the FFL, the price of the gun. He pays the seller (owner) of the gun.

The FFL gets paid for performing the transfer. Who pays the FFL is between the buyer and seller, but somebody pays the FFL dealer's fee for the use of his license and time. The law requires it, so the FFL dealers fee is part of the cost, along with paying the shipping company.

Like a warehouse, the FFL is responsible for the gun while it is in his possession, but doesn't own the gun in the legal sense. If there was a fire, and the gun was destroyed, the insurance wouldn't pay the FFL for that gun, because he didn't own it. They would pay the owner.

There's a significant difference between "ownership by possession" and legal ownership (legal title to the property). Which of these and their attendant regulations is applied, and in what degree is dependent on the circumstances of the specific situation.

Next time you're in a shop that does the transfers, ask them about their roles and responsibilities. I'm sure they'll explain the best they can.
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Old January 19, 2018, 02:23 PM   #47
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Any rational person knows that firearms are purchased every day from private sellers, on line or person to person by prohibited persons.
How on line? Let's say I give you the person to person thing done by "private individuals" who look an awfully lot like dealers but are selling a "personal collection". This does not apply to on line sales.
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Old January 19, 2018, 02:35 PM   #48
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Originally Posted by Prndll
When a firearm is sent to an FFL, is that not a 'transfer' of the physical item that would essentially mean that the FFL at that point is now the owner?....
No. The word "transfer" includes a change of possession, and possession is not the same as ownership. One may have physical possession, i. e., control of something, without being the legal owner.

When I use valet parking, the valet has possession of my car, but I retain legal title.
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Old January 23, 2018, 10:08 PM   #49
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I am reasonably certain that I received a message in this effort on this very forum.

I had several guns listed in the WTS locally section of the classifieds in Wisconsin and got a message from a potential buyer in Illinois regarding an 870. They wanted to meet and have sale cross state lines, expressly stating to avoid the FFL. There was no mention to my recollection of a statement that would suggest "prohibited person." The forum message was well written and I remember thinking it may well be a law enforcement effort. I did not get similar offers on two other items.
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Old January 24, 2018, 06:32 AM   #50
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I, too, was approached by a former member in regards to the sale of an 870. The would-be buyer asked me to ship him the gun across state lines without involving an FFL. Preferably in several small packages, ostensibly because the FFL local to him charged too much.

I contacted my local BATFE office, and tried to report it. The agent perked up a bit when he thought I'd actually sold the shotgun. Once I explained that I had not done so because I knew that doing so was a federal crime, he lost interest. BATFE was not interested, because I hadn't gone through with the deal. Apparently, solicitation of a federal firearms crime wasn't sexy enough for them.
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