Gentleman,
Respectfully, we are all reading the same laws. The difference is looking for a narrow definition of the language in the laws and presuming that the law reads as a guide to what is allowed, rather than what is forbidden. One could draw a parallel between reading 2A as an individual right, or presuming that the militia part defines the rest of it as a restriction to militias only.
As I doubt Dogtown only sells guns to militias, let's talk about what the law does and does not say, and what we're supposed to make of what it says:
Yes. A person may ship a firearm to himself or herself in care of another person in the State where he or she intends to hunt or engage in any other lawful activity. The package should be addressed to the owner. Persons other than the owner should not open the package and take possession of the firearm.
What it DOES say is that if YOU ship a firearm interstate addressed to you, the recepient does not violate the law unless they open the box. You are completely ignoring or ignorant of the /federal laws regarding interstate commerce in firearms.
In the regs you quote, it doesn't say "recipient" anywhere. The sentence "Persons other than the owner should not open the package and take possession of the firearm," stands on its own, without designating that this is about the recipient. In fact, it would be most accurate to say that no person who handles the package can open it BUT the owner - which includes the carrier(s). Where did you read
recipient?
Horsehockey. FedEx employees are acting as "common carriers".
Using your brilliant theory anyone could ship firearms interstate to each other, claiming "but, but, but I'm just a courier!".
The law actually refers to "common and contract carriers". What makes this messy is that both of these are definitions used in interstate commerce. But let me suggest that my brilliant theory is that anyone who you ask to carry something for you
is a contract carrier. As long as the firearm is not unwrapped by either the contract carrier or the common carrier, both are complying with the law. If your friend drops a package you wrapped, addressed and paid for at FedEx, he has "carried" the package, not taken possession of the firearm. The fact that he carried out this "carry contract" for free or for a fee doesn't make him any different than any other contracted carrier. (All of which may be irrelevant if that carrier never crossed a state line, which is what 18 USC regulates.) This is the reason even your movers can legally transport your firearms for you.
The person must notify the mover that firearms are being transported.
Who's a "mover"?
Finally, the rest of your disagreement comes from a extremely restrictive view of what a "shipper" is, or what you do to "ship" something. I'm quite sure that anyone who boxed, addressed, contracted the shipping and paid for the shipping of something illegal to ship - like cocaine - would be charged for violations of interstate commerce laws, regardless of whether they dropped it off at FedEx or had someone else do it. The opposite, that a person who intends to ship something but does everything BUT hand it to the contract carrier can't both be true. Either the shipper is the one who causes shipping to happen, or it is a variety of other people who simply handle a box, paste a label, etc.
Imagine what it would be like to live in a country where your friend hands a box to the UPS driver because you're in the bathroom, and that act causes him to be in violation of Federal interstate commerce law. Ridiculous!
I am all for following the law, and the intent and language of the law is to prevent illegal interstate transfers and prevent seemingly accidental possession. But "possession" under 18 USC is, at best, poorly defined. There are numerous legal situations where one could assume a change in possession has happened when it has not. It is why a felon can marry and co-habitate with a gun owner, why you can contract to send a gun over state lines, and why you can lend a handgun to a minor for work or to anyone else for "sporting purposes".
The laws are a guide to what is forbidden, which is the way laws are supposed to work in a free country. That does create areas that appear gray, but when it isn't spelled out as black, free people should assume it is white.
And in the case of you handing a gun to a browsing customer, show me which law specifically says that is permissible. If possession is as restrictive as you believe, how are you not violating this principle when you hand a gun to someone without transferring first?
The answer is likely that "taking possession" is a more specific activity than handing off a box or holding a gun. I would imagine that the most important aspect of possession is intent - which is why a broken open gun box also doesn't make someone into a felon. Nor does a good faith effort on a person's part to use contract and common carriers to send a firearm to themselves. There are no "exemptions" needed when something isn't specifically prohibited.
I think too many gun people get carried away making broad and paralyzing interpretations of the laws. There is an awful lot of stuff that is clearly permissible that the law doesn't specifically delineate, and this is one of those things.