New Background Check Rule

Status
Not open for further replies.
I’m so confused. It is like they didn’t change anything, but are making a big announcement that they did.

Additionally, let’s say I list a firearm for sale on here and sell it for more than I paid for it.

Writing a post has some relation to this as does the profit, but then it still falls under occasional. I’ll be interested in the general consensus as to how this impacts used gun sales on forums. What is weird is generally you need an FFL to ship and FFL to receive. So how does this change?
 
Nathan I’m so confused. It is like they didn’t change anything, but are making a big announcement that they did.
Click to expand...
Things did change due to the passage of the BSCA two years ago. This is ATF exercising their wings via the rulemaking process.


Additionally, let’s say I list a firearm for sale on here and sell it for more than I paid for it.

Writing a post has some relation to this as does the profit, but then it still falls under occasional. I’ll be interested in the general consensus as to how this impacts used gun sales on forums. .
Click to expand...
Not an issue. See the link in post#6.

What is weird is generally you need an FFL to ship and FFL to receive. So how does this change?
Click to expand...
This definition is attempting to force unlicensed sellers at gun shows who are engaging in the business of dealing in firearms by the repetitive buying and selling of firearms.......to get their FFL.
 
Dogtown Tom-

So, you don't perceive this as an infringement on personal firearms sales?

Do you not think that the current administration and BATF want a background check done on every firearms sale?

I do understand you value your FFL and do things correctly-as a dealer should, but it ALMOST sounds like you approve of additional regulations and infringement.
 
The Verminator said:
It changes nothing.

It does allow Biden some points with his idiot base.

He's desperate.
Click to expand...
I was a little sloppy with this.

What I should have said is that nothing will change for the average gun owner.

Why? Because the average gun owner is not a gun dealer who sells guns for profit and derives substantial income from his dealings.

Doing that without a FFL has always been illegal.

These pseudo, part time, amateur but active gun sellers will now get more attention.......or at least sweat a little more.
 
Last edited:
Bill DeShivs Dogtown Tom-

So, you don't perceive this as an infringement on personal firearms sales?
Click to expand...
All gun laws are an infringement on the Second Amendment.
But until SCOTUS agrees we have to abide.

Of course its an infringement on personal firearm sales. But when a person doesn't hold an FFL and begins repetitively buying and selling firearms he's not collecting, not personal.........he's a business.





Do you not think that the current administration and BATF want a background check done on every firearms sale?
Click to expand...
Isn't that obvious?



I do understand you value your FFL and do things correctly-as a dealer should, but it ALMOST sounds like you approve of additional regulations and infringement.
Click to expand...
Oh please. Explanation doesn't equal agreement. You should know that.

BUT.......if I have to get an FFL, keep records, perform background checks on buyers and comply with federal law in order to engage in the business of dealing in firearms, so should anyone else who engages in the business of dealing in firearms.

If you don't want to get an FFL, keep records, perform background checks on buyers and comply with federal law to engage in the business of dealing in firearms........then don't dance around pretending its just a "personal sale". ATF is clear this doesn't prevent personal sales by nonlicensees.

This regulation isn't about Uncle Bob selling a gun at a gun show twice a year, its about the Bryan Malinowski's.....guys who rent multiple tables and sell dozens of new guns at gun shows or have dozens of online ads selling guns. They ARE engaged in the business and need to get their FFL.

If you don't want to do background checks, don't become a gun dealer.
 
44 Amp said:
So, I guess they've changed the fee schedule since the Clinton era??
Click to expand...

The fee was increased in 1993, during the first year of that admin.

The change in definition and new regs take a definition resting on "with a principle objective of a livelihood" to something much broader that could include a mere offer to sell is not a clarification, and surely isn't required to prosecute what was already illegal.
 
I understand your viewpoint now.

I agree that "dealers" should get an FFL. However, I really don't think the feds care so much about unlicensed dealers as they do about making most sellers a "dealer."
 
However, I really don't think the feds care so much about unlicensed dealers as they do about making most sellers a "dealer."
Click to expand...

sure looks that way...

And this is what bothers me most, about how they are defining things.

For many, many years I bought, sold and swapped guns as a hobby. Face to face, no background checks, no FFL and entirely legal where I lived, and when I did it.

All the guns were for my personal use, some of them I still have decades later, others went away over time, a few I didn't keep more than weeks, or even days, if I found a better deal on something I wanted. None of it was done with the intent of generating income, though I did try hard to sell or trade for some degree of profit. Getting what I wanted was the point, losing money on the deal wasn't.

Based on what is being said and reported (admittedly always flawed and generally biased) someone doing what I used to could be classified as an "unlicensed dealer", and possibly prosecuted.

Just because the govt doesn't take a new rule or even a new law to its possible extremes today doesn't mean they never will.
 
For many, many years I bought, sold and swapped guns as a hobby. Face to face, no background checks, no FFL and entirely legal where I lived, and when I did it.
Click to expand...
(bold emphasis is mine)

A cautionary note for others:

Last year we were able to do this in Minnesota.

This year we cannot.
 
Keep in mind that this restriction applies to pistols and assault rifles only.
Click to expand...

It can be argued that the law does not cover actual assault rifles. The term used in the link is "assault weapons", which is a tiny but significant difference.

A difference unknown to most people who get told something is an "assault weapon" and if it is a rifle, call it an assault rifle, but it's not an actual assault rifle.

The term "assault rifle" came into existence near the end of WWII, and was coined by Adolf Hitler. After the war it was adopted and defined by the firearms community using the main features of the German Sturmgewehr (Assault Rifle) those being box magazine fed, SELECT FIRE and using an "intermediate power cartridge".

The key difference between and assault rifle and an assault weapon is SELECT FIRE. Assault weapons are semi automatics, not capable of full auto fire. This is the definition written into law.

Assault rifles are select fire, and since they are capable of full auto fire, under US Federal law, they are machine guns. There is no term in Federal law for assault rifles. They are machine guns, and that feature takes precedence over all others.

Its only one word of difference in the name, but a huge difference in the definitions, and one that the anti gun people deliberately made up to take advantage of most people lack of knowledge in this rather narrow and arcane area of firearms terminology, when they created the term "assault weapon".
 
Here's something to ponder--when you do a firearms transfer without an ffl--and you originally bought it with one--the trail of serial record goes cold with you as last known owner. If you acquire the serial firearm without an ffl and then move it on--and you do this on a repeated basis, that's a tricky situation as well. The big "what if" is what happens if the firearm ends up being used or transferred illegally.
 
stagpanther said:
Here's something to ponder--when you do a firearms transfer without an ffl--and you originally bought it with one--the trail of serial record goes cold with you as last known owner. If you acquire the serial firearm without an ffl and then move it on--and you do this on a repeated basis, that's a tricky situation as well. The big "what if" is what happens if the firearm ends up being used or transferred illegally.
Click to expand...

Why should this be tricky?

Except for the cars I have now, every car I've ever purchased has been passed on to someone else. I couldn't tell you whether any of them were used in a deadly drunk driving crash. Household goods and clothing I've purchased but no longer have were largely been given to churches.

While the focus of my hobby is shooting, I don't deny that I sometimes have found the items themselves interesting, or that sometimes my interest in a specific item having been dated then passes. I've had a few that didn't make it beyond a first range session to know that I didn't like them well enough to keep them. I've surely had months in which I bought or sold more than once.

Would that still be occasional under the new law, and should anyone trust the federal government to measure occasional sales fairly where they've already indicated that less than one can be enough to violate law?

(b) Fact-specific inquiry. Whether a person is engaged in the business as a dealer under paragraph (a) of this section is a fact-specific inquiry. Selling large numbers of firearms or engaging or offering to engage in frequent transactions may be highly indicative of business activity.
However, there is no minimum threshold number of
firearms purchased or sold that triggers the licensing requirement. Similarly, there is no minimum number of transactions that determines whether a person is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms. For example, even a single firearm transaction or offer to engage in a transaction, when combined with other evidence (e.g., where a person represents to others a willingness and ability to purchase more firearms for resale), may require a license; whereas, a single isolated firearm transaction without such evidence
would not require a license. At all times, the determination of whether a person is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms is based on the totality of the circumstances.
(c) Presumptions that a person is engaged in the business as a dealer. In civil
and administrative proceedings, a person shall be presumed to be engaged in the business of dealing in firearms as defined in paragraph (a) of this section, absent reliable evidence to the contrary, when it is shown that the person—
Click to expand...

https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regul...ion-engaged-business-dealer-firearms/download at p457, 458.

That's not a standard and it isn't plausibly offered for clarity of application. It's an assertion of expanded federal authority over people who have no objective of a livelihood pertaining to firearms with a presumption in favor of the government.
 
Last edited:
Except for the cars I have now, every car I've ever purchased has been passed on to someone else
Click to expand...
Blur the interpretation enough--it becomes plausible there is no difference between a licensed business and the casual "hobbyist try-it-out -and sell-it-for-the next-interest." Mind you, I'm not taking sides, I'm just relaying actual experience with the ATF in my state over these issues. In my state, they generally give the benefit of the doubt to a "violater" with a notice of the law's interpretation. That may change, I don't know.
 
I’m still confused. There have been some super minor tweaks, infringements none the less, that have been communicated. Then they go tell the press that this drives 20000 more dealers and stops some gun show loop hole and puts an end to internet sales. Nothing written substantially changes any of this, unless they just start randomly arresting people not violating the law….or harass online dealers out of dealing with individuals. That has been done. This is why we need an FFL to ship anything!
 
Nathan said:
I’m still confused. There have been some super minor tweaks, infringements none the less, that have been communicated. Then they go tell the press that this drives 20000 more dealers and stops some gun show loop hole and puts an end to internet sales. Nothing written substantially changes any of this, unless they just start randomly arresting people not violating the law….or harass online dealers out of dealing with individuals. That has been done. This is why we need an FFL to ship anything!
Click to expand...
Nothing to be confused about.

The average gun owner does not buy and sell enough to be in violation.

If it does anything, this new reg only applies to a few guys who are constantly buying and selling to make money.

This is a political move to make Biden's Liberal base think he's doing something.

He's not.
 
stagpanther said:
Here's something to ponder--when you do a firearms transfer without an ffl--and you originally bought it with one--the trail of serial record goes cold with you as last known owner. If you acquire the serial firearm without an ffl and then move it on--and you do this on a repeated basis, that's a tricky situation as well. The big "what if" is what happens if the firearm ends up being used or transferred illegally.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

This is why I will never sell another gun EXCEPT through my local gun shop placing it on Gun Broker for me.

This works well and I am protected.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top