I’ve often heard that it’s easy to acquire guns at gun shows and that people who should not have guns have used gun shows as a means to acquiring them.
So I’d like to know the facts. I realize that it can vary from state to state. If it does, please specify.
What must one actually do at a gun show to buy a gun? Is there some paperwork or ID verification? How are felons or people similarly disallowed from having guns effectively prevented from acquiring them at gun shows?
Are there some rules which theoretically prevent unauthorized individuals from acquiring guns but only do so theoretically because they’re not actually practiced by the participants?
IIRC, it varies from state to state. In Tennessee, you can sell a gun privately as long as you don’t knowingly sell to a mentally ill person, a felon or someone otherwise disqualified from owning a gun (domestic violence comes to mind.) It is wise to get a name and address on the bill of sale but I’m not sure that is required.
IME the gun show proper is set up with tables by various licensed dealers and store owners. When you buy a gun from them it’s no different than if you bought it intheir store, they do a background check and there’s a waiting period.
Private sales of guns by individuals do not require any checks. You may find people who want to sell their personal guns in the parking lot, and if you’re a felon the person selling the gun has no way of knowing that.
It’s no different than if they took out an ad in the paper or posted it on craigslist, except that those aren’t generally allowed.
In Texas it’s extremely easy. While dealers with tables have to do a background check, there’s a number of individuals walking around with a small arsenal that they’re willing to part with for the right price. My 16 year old friend bought a rifle this way: just a quick exchange of cash and you’re done, no fuss.
last I checked, in MI a private sale of a long gun (rifle or shotgun) can be done in the clear. A dealer with an FFL cannot; they still have to do the paperwork. Private sales of handguns still require the buyer apply for a license to purchase from the local PD and go through the background check.
In Texas, could he have done the same with a handgun?
How about a semiautomatic submachine gun? Some submachineguns aren’t much bigger than pistols, do they get counted as handguns, long guns or something else? Is there a minimum barrel length?
First, what you are asking about doesn’t exist. If you are asking about fully automatic weapons, they are governed by Federal law and aren’t sold at gun shows to random strangers. You have to have the proper license and the paperwork can be a bitch sometimes.
Even in CA, if the gun is over a certain age it is classed as a Curio & Relic and the rules are pretty much non-existent.
Not with a handgun, no. I haven’t been to show in a while and I’m a bit fuzzy on what the actual laws are. I leave it to this board’s legal eagles to enlighten us.
I understand that most submachineguns have full auto capacity. But surely, just as with assault rifles, it’s possible to make them semiauto only. Is there no such thing as an semiauto Uzi or MP5?
Again, you don’t know what you are saying. “Submachine gun” = “fully auto.” Period. You also say “assault rifle” when there is no such animal.
For what you are trying to say, I guess: Yes, there are semiauto versions of Uzis, Thompsons and the like out there. They are next to impossible for a layman to convert to fully auto.
There are such things, but they aren’t called submachineguns. An SMG, by definition, has to be capable of full auto fire. The semi-automatic versions of the UZI, MP5, Thompson, etc, are just pistol-caliber carbines or (big, clumsy) semi-automatic pistols. An SMG is an SMG because of what it does, not what it looks like.
OTOH, it’s easy to convert an AR-15 to select-fire by dropping in the parts and machining a simple auto-sear and drilling a hole for its pin. (And no, I haven’t tried it. But I’ve built AR-15s and putting the parts in is easy, and I’ve seen ‘blueprints’ for the auto-sear. Two pieces of metal, a spring, and a pin.)
I wouldn’t say it is easy if your goal is to end up with a full-auto weapon that is both reliable and safe. What is easy is to kludge up a slam-firing POS that will run away on you, fire out of battery, and other unpleasantness.
What, you deny there is such a thing as an “assault rifle”? As in a high capacity intermediate-power rifle fed from a magazine, the first example of which was the STG44? What do you call the M-16, the AK-47, AK-74, L85, FAMAS or G36 if not assault rifle?
When I said “semiauto SMG”, I meant the semiauto version of an SMG. I could have said “the version of an SMG which has been modified to only shoot semiauto but isn’t really an SMG because of that even though it has the same basic operating mechanism and functions except for fullauto fire” but that would have been a little long.
But it would have been exceptionally more accurate, as opposed to the inflammatory, inaccurate and down-right wrong thing you did say.
Assault rifles aren’t for sale in the US to non-license holders. But I did miss-type. “Assault weapons” are the things that don’t exist except as political theater.
I would say the AR-15 is quite easy. Replacing the hammer, trigger, selector, sear, and bolt carrier is not a ‘kludge’, because you’re using ‘drop-in’ parts. Without the auto-sear, you would indeed have a ‘slam-firing POS’. A drop-in auto-sear serves the same purpose as a factory auto-sear. (Note: an actual auto-sear won’t fit in the receiver.) It catches the ‘hook’ on the back of the auto’s hammer and holds it until the rear of the auto’s bolt carrier hits the auto-sear and releases the hammer. You used to be able to buy pre-made drop-in auto-sears, which meant that you wouldn’t even have to machine your own.
Personally, I don’t see the point of a non-criminal converting a firearm. The penalties are too high, and the utility is questionable at best. In the case of a socio-economic collapse, obtaining a fully-automatic firearm would probably not be very difficult. Of course ammo might be harder to find.
I wish you showed as much pedantry in explaining how gun acquisition works at gunshows as you do when you require a full awkward paragraph instead of two words.
Do you have anything to say about gun acquisition at gun shows?
Buying from a licensed dealer at a gun show is the same process as buying from that same dealer at his shop. All the same federal and state laws will be followed.
Buying from a private individual at a gun show will be the same as purchasing from that individual would be anywhere else. Either he will be the type of person who follows his state laws or he will not.
As you acknowledged and as others have said, it varies by state. In California every transaction must go through a dealer, with the appropriate paperwork, background checks, and waiting period. In other states, private sales can be done on the spot with no waiting period or paperwork – with the caveat that you can’t sell a gun to a person who has been disallowed the owning of guns. In most states you can buy a black powder firearm (which is not a ‘firearm’ under federal rules that specify ‘fixed ammunition’) through the mail, either from a dealer or an individual. Here, a black powder revolver is treated as a modern revolver and you need to go through a dealer (with the paperwork and the waiting period) if you buy a new one. (I’m not sure how private handgun sales are handled here, as I’ve bought mine from out-of-state and had to use a dealer for the transfer in compliance with federal laws.) (Note: My CCW permit allows me to bypass the waiting period.)