Defending Gun Shows: Your Freedom's at Stake

Defending Gun Shows Your freedom’s at stake

By Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant, & Joanne Eisen
March 15, 2001
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopelprint031501.html

Dismayed by the meager political accomplishments of Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI), former
HCI board member Andy McKelvey (the billionaire owner of Monster.com) has founded his
own gun-control group, which he calls "Americans for Gun Safety." You might expect that a
group called Americans for Gun Safety would promote successful gun-safety programs, such
as the NRA's Eddie Eagle accident-prevention program, which has been lauded by the
National Safety Council.

But Americans for Gun "Safety" is doing no such thing. Despite the group's moderate name,
its list of affiliates includes many groups that oppose any form of gun ownership by anyone
other than government employees.

For example, the affiliate Women Against Gun Violence advises, "Remove any guns from
your home." And it turns out that the top item on the AGS agenda is exactly the same as the top
item on the agenda of firearm-prohibition groups like HCI — namely, closing the so-called
gun show "loophole." In fact, AGS is currently running a television ad campaign claiming that
"convicted felons are buying guns at gun shows, where background checks are not always
required."

"Close the gun-show loophole!" is a now-familiar refrain. Just "common-sense" legislation
aimed at dealing with America's social ills? It might appear that way…until one takes a
closer look.

On February 21, 2001, an editorial in the Washington Times observed that, in Maryland,
gun-control groups were pushing a bill that would prohibit the sale or display of guns on any
property owned by the Maryland National Park Planning Commission. If passed, the editorial
concluded, the law would prevent many of the annual gun shows that take place in the state of
Maryland — all of them indubitably legal — from continuing.

Maryland already has a state-level law like the one AGS and HCI are backing at the national
level: Every sale at a gun show requires government permission, a background check, and gun
registration — even a sale by a small-time collector who is just selling three guns over the
course of a weekend.

Yet Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse — which AGS touts as a favored "local gun safety
group" — is attempting to end gun shows there.

In California, the laws governing gun shows and private sales are like those in Maryland. Yet
local affiliates of national anti-gun groups have pushed hard to shut down gun shows entirely
in several California counties.

One gun-control supporter, quoted in the Washington Post, claimed that the Maryland
legislation "has to do with public safety, especially the safety of our children". But, as the
Washington Times editorial pointed out, "what 'public safety' purpose is served by making life
harder for people without criminal records, who pass background checks and who are buying
firearms in a perfectly lawful manner?"

Asked the Times editorial, "If gun-control advocates only want to bar criminals from gaining
access to guns — and to 'close loopholes' in the law that make it easier for crooks to get
firearms — why are they backing legislation that would prohibit lawful gun shows on
state-owned property, where all state and federal firearms transactions procedures are
followed to the letter?"

The Times provided its own answer: Proponents of the Maryland bill "have but one object in
mind — making it harder, in time impossible, for ordinary people to purchase firearms,
period."

Herewith a February 18, 2001, Washington Post report on an effort to ban gun shows on
public property in Montgomery County, Md.: "Gun-control advocates urged the country
council to take any steps it can to reduce the availability of guns."

Does Americans for Gun Safety really believe, as its commercial proclaims, that "in America,
we have the right to own a gun"? If so, then why is AGS promoting extremist groups which
think that trying to stop law-abiding people from buying guns is a good idea?

Despite all the disinformation spread by the gun-prohibition lobby, a gun show is really
nothing more than people wishing to sell one or more firearms to others who wish to purchase
(or simply to gaze upon) the merchandise. Most of the sellers are federally licensed dealers
displaying their wares to prospective buyers outside their normal place of business.

Anyone engaged in the business of selling firearms is required to be licensed by the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. (18 U.S.Code, sect. 923(a).) According to federal law,
dealer sales must be accompanied by an instant background check, regardless of the premises
where the transaction takes place. Federal law does not allow any exceptions. If you are
engaged in the business of selling firearms, then you have to fill out the federal paperwork,
and call the FBI to get permission for every sale. There is no gun show "loophole" which
changes the rules.

On the other hand, people who are not engaged in the business of selling firearms, but who
sell firearms once in a while (such as a man who sells a hunting rifle to his brother-in-law),
are not required to obtain the federal firearms license required of gun dealers, or to call the
FBI before completing the sale.

Similarly, if a gun collector dies and his widow wants to sell his guns, she does not need a
federal license, because she is just selling inherited property and is not "engaged in the
business." And if the widow doesn't want to take out an ad in the classifieds to sell her
deceased husband's guns, it is lawful for her to rent a table at a gun show and sell the entire
collection over the weekend.

Basically, the furor over the so-called gun show "loophole" amounts to a complaint by
gun-prohibition groups that people outside the firearms business aren't controlled by the same
federal laws that pertain to licensed firearms businessmen.

Why do law-abiding firearms owners and their organizations resist the efforts of AGS, HCI,
MAHA, and other gun-control groups to impose federal background checks and paperwork on
gun sales by private citizens?

Peaceable gun-owners would gladly absorb the cost of the National Instant Check System
(NICS) and comply with its not-so-instant provisions (many "instant" background checks take
days, not minutes; and the number of mistaken denials is very large) — if they thought that
those who proposed such legislation were honest in their motives, and if they thought that the
checks would make a significant dent in the criminal misuse of firearms.

But the hidden agenda of SAFE (Colorado's main anti-gun group) was captured on tape, with
one of its leaders explaining that the group's "gun-show" initiative (which passed last
November in Colorado) was just an "incremental" step toward the goal of requiring
government approval for all firearms transfers, even between two private individuals.

And in an anonymous gun-owner poll which ran in the December 2000 issue of Guns &
Ammo magazine (the largest over-the-newsstand gun periodical), 60% of almost 7,000
respondents disagreed with the statement "The National Instant Check System is an effective
means for preventing criminals from obtaining firearms."

Scientific validation of the failure of NICS was provided just last summer, when the verdict
came in on the most famous gun law in America, one whose centerpiece was the instant
criminal background check: the Brady Law, enacted in 1993. In the August 2, 2000 issue of
the Journal of the American Medical Association, pro-control researchers Jens Ludwig and
Philip Cook forthrightly concluded that "Our analyses provide no evidence that
implementation of the Brady Act was associated with a reduction in homicide rates…[nor] an
association of the Brady Act with overall suicide rates."

The far more sophisticated research by Prof. John Lott on the effects of the Brady Act, in the
second edition of his book, More Guns, Less Crime, is consistent with the findings of the
JAMA study. (Lott controlled for variables such as law-enforcement effectiveness and the
length of different state waiting periods, which the JAMA authors did not). Lott found no
statistically significant effect on firearms-related deaths.

Lott also looked at other violent crimes, while the JAMA authors studied only homicide and
suicide. For most crimes, Brady produced no statistically significant impact — except that
rape rose 3.6% and aggravated assaults against women rose 2.5%, perhaps because the
Brady waiting period delayed handgun purchases by five government working days, even for
women who needed immediate protection against stalkers and similar threats.

Anti-gun groups use the gun-show "loophole" issue to perpetrate their usual bait-and-switch.
According to the new Colorado law pushed by AGS, HCI, and SAFE, any time three people
are present, that's a "gun show." Thus, a "gun show" can be nothing more than a gathering in
Aunt May's home for the purpose of selling her recently deceased husband's collection of
firearms, providing the purchaser and Aunt May's daughter are present.

Notably, anti-gun groups insist that whenever a person passes the federal background check,
the government should keep records on the buyer. But what's the point of retaining a list of
non-criminals who are just exercising their constitutional rights?

Simple. Firearm confiscation is a lot easier when the government has a list of every gun
owner, and every gun owned. But when private citizens are allowed to sell firearms to other
private citizens without getting government permission beforehand, there is no paper trail.
Conversely, if buyers and sellers in private firearms transfers at a gun show are subjected to
a background check, then many more people and guns will end up on the registration list.

That firearm registration lists can be used for confiscation has been well established right
here in the U.S. Since 1966, all firearms in New York City have been required to be
registered by law. In 1991, then-Mayor David Dinkins rammed a so-called
"assault-weapons" ban through the City Council. Then, the 1966 registration law was used by
the members of the NYPD to confiscate previously registered and lawfully owned firearms.

More recently, in June 1999, leaked documents from California Attorney General Bill
Lockyer revealed a plan to use registration lists to confiscate "assault-weapons" — firearms
that had been registered under former Attorney General Dan Lungren. Lockyer's office
promptly denied they were drafted for any purpose other than "for discussion."

Curiously, there's never any mention of the real "loophole" in all these anti-gun-show
schemes, the one that enables criminals to get whatever firearms they want, whenever they
want: the "black market."

Canada already does what HCI and the "Million" Mom March insist America should do.
Under a new law pushed through by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien, every gun
owner must be licensed, and every gun registered. Even ammunition is strictly controlled. But
according to a report in the February 13, 2001 Winnipeg Free Press, Manitoba's former
attorney general Vic Toews stated that "the only thing the law has done is create an
underground market for ammunition, as unlicensed gun-owners shop around for shells and
bullets."

A January 4, 2001 editorial in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix observed that "Justice Minister
Anne McLellan simply brushed aside her advisory panel's warning that the law would
'encourage a rampant increase' in the black market for firearms… Try as it might to convince
Canadians to go along with an idiotic law, the results were only too clear as Monday [the
licensing deadline] dawned with untold numbers of firearms owners opting for civil
disobedience rather than compliance."

Despite the obfuscation by America's anti-self-defense lobby as to what constitutes a gun
show, the answer is really simple: A gun show is nothing more than the exercise of rights
guaranteed in the Bill of Rights: "the freedom of speech," "the right of the people peaceably to
assemble," and "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms." Indeed, two court cases
explicitly recognize the First Amendment component of gun shows. They are Nordyke v. Santa
Clara and Atlantic City Show Promotions v. City of Tampa.

If the censors and prohibitionists get their way and succeed in closing gun shows, they'll
discover that they've created an entirely new kind of gun show: the kind that's now burgeoning
in Canada, and the kind they'll be powerless to regulate.

That kind of gun show will be held in the trunk of a car.

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