... then educate yourself about existing laws.
Its inevitable, after a mass shooting takes place, the gut reaction of many people, especially on the Left, is to cry for stricter gun control laws. I understand that; even as a gun owner and gun store sales person. The problem I have with this sentiment is that many people who say they want tougher gun laws don't know what laws are already in place and don't know the first thing about the process of buying a gun. When it comes down to it, as with any topic, if you don't know much about the subject you are talking about, your opinion will not be respected by those that do, even if you may have a good point or two. If you want tougher guns laws, then you owe it to yourself to learn what they are. Otherwise you are just venting and choosing willful ignorance ... kinda like what those on the Right tend to do when they are afraid of the truth.
If you want to know what it takes to buy a gun in a typical American state, follow me below the fold.
The following is largely a reposting of a diary, with some significant changes, that I wrote in April 2009. It was entitled Diary of a Liberal Gun Store Clerk (Part I). There was no Part II.
I have worked for the past four years in a small but very successful gun store in a small Indiana town. Federal Firearms Licensed (FFL) dealers have to follow both federal and state laws. State laws vary and mainly pertain to restrictions on types of guns (and sometimes ammo) and provisions for carrying a firearm. Federal law largely guides the purchase process.
Indiana was recently listed in NYC Mayor Bloomberg's study as one the states with the most lax gun laws and as one of the biggest exporters of guns used in crimes in other states. One thing I noticed about the study and the accompanying map is that the states that export the most guns used in crimes are those closest to major cities with significant problems with violent crime. I don't argue with the numbers but I don't believe the report's conclusions are completely sound. It seems to me a chicken-or-egg type of situation. But my point is not to argue the Bloomberg Commission's findings, rather to point out that Indiana has some of the least strict gun laws in the country. Keep that in mind as you read further. I believe that Indiana's laws are reasonable, you may disagree.
I will start by describing the process of buying a gun in my state. As I mentioned, the rules differ a bit from state to state but Federal law mainly directs the process.
In Indiana, in order to by a gun, a buyer must have a valid photo ID (this even applies to the Amish - and yes, they do buy guns); almost exclusively this is a Drivers License or state issued ID Card. The buyer must also be a resident of Indiana to buy a handgun or a resident of Indiana or a bordering state to buy a long gun (rifle or shotgun); city of Chicago and Cook County excluded. The buyer must also have proof of residence; often this is covered by the drivers license, but if the license does not show the person's current address, a government issued document proving the buyer's current address is required. Vehicle registration, a tax document, a hunting or fishing license or a county library card all work. The buyer must be at least 21 y.o. to buy a handgun or rifle lower receiver, and, in Indiana, a shotgun that has a pistol grip and no butt stock. Buyers of long guns must be at least 18 y.o..
Indiana also allows the sale of most National Firearms Act (NFA) weapons. Also known as Class III weapons, because items in this category require a Class III Federal Firearms License (FFL) to sell. These items include fully automatic weapons (machine guns), silencers, short barrel rifles (SBR), short barrel shotguns (SBS), Any-Other Weapons (AOW) and certain Destructive Devices (DD). I may go into this later as most people do not buy these items and purchasing them requires a much more involved and lengthy process. NFA devices, including fully automatic guns are not nearly as easily acquired on the black market as semi-autos; there is no "gun show loop hole" for this class of item.
A typical sale starts when a buyer walks into my shop and wants to buy a gun or guns. Assuming the buyer meets the above mentioned criteria, I must be reasonably certain that the gun(s) they intend to buy are for themselves and that the buyer does not intend to resell the gun(s). This is the most stressful and perilous part of the gun store employee's/owner's job, at least it ought to be. This is the realm of the "straw purchase". A straw purchase is when one person buys a gun on behalf of another person who is not legally allowed to possess a gun, either because the person is under age, has done something to forfeit their right to possess a firearm, or are not a resident of a qualifying state or are not a US citizen.
Unfortunately, what constitutes a straw purchase is not clear cut. The ATF 4473 Form - which I will explain further - lays out what a straw purchase is and what it is not. The trap comes though in that there is quite a substantial gray area between what is and what is not a straw purchase. What my store owner quickly found is that, like most legal writing, there is room for interpretation.
Every FFL holder has an ATF compliance officer which is available to answer questions regarding ATF regulations. Our compliance officer told the store owner that while the 4473 states that, for example, a person may buy a gun on behalf of another family member, or that guns may be bought as gifts, our compliance officer says that the matter is not that simple and may constitute a straw purchase and thus a violation depending on the details of the situation. So, to get specific, if I sell a gun to a man who is buying it for his wife to keep at home while he is away on business trips, according to the instructions in the 4473, that is fine. However, if that woman turns out to have been a convicted felon, and thus prohibited from possession of a firearm (or even residing in a home with one present) a straw purchase was just transacted and both my customer and I are liable to substantial criminal penalties including up to a quarter million dollar fine and 10 years in prison.
Since it is the FFL's legal obligation to know his/her customers, the smart thing for the gun dealer to do is to sell guns to only those people who he/she is confident are buy the gun(s) for themselves. A women may come in to buy a gun for her husband for his birthday but we will not sell the gun to her even though we may believe her story and according to the 4473 such a sale does not constitute a straw purchase. We explain why we will not sell the gun to her and then offer to sell her a gift certificate for her hubby. This allows her to pay for the gun, but her husband must physically come into our shop and submit to the background check.
Another common scenario is that I will be talking to a customer for a few minutes about a particular gun and he will say something along the lines of how he has been looking for this specific gun and yada yada. Then he will make an off-hand comment, sometimes to a buddy, about how the gun is for his wife, at which point I will announce that I cannot sell the gun to him and that he should bring his wife in to buy it. This is sometimes meet with confusion by the formerly potential buyer. I know that most of these guys' wives are probably saints and probably aren't that interested in having the gun, but despite what the 4473 says, it is not worth the risk to make the sale.
Another thing we have to be very careful about is who pays for the gun since this too can be a setup for a straw purchase. We do not accept credit cards that are not the buyer's, it doesn't matter if it is the buyer's wife's card and it draws from their joint account. We will not take cash from friends who are loaning some money. Sure, if a person is $10 short, no problem, but otherwise, no deal.
So what is a Form 4473? The 4473 is the background check. After the buyer has met age, ID and residency requirements and I am confident that he or she is not attempting a straw purchase, the buyer must submit to a background check. Background checks are run through the FBI National Instant Criminal Search, or NICS, pronounced "nicks". The buyer fills out his/her basic info, being careful not to abbreviate, and making sure to write legibly and to print (no cursive) and in black ink. They must correctly answer yes or no to 12 questions (my favorite is "Are you a fugitive from justice?") and sign and date. The sales person records the type of firearm(s); the photo ID type, number and expiration date; the current date; the make, model, serial number, type and caliber/gauge of the gun; the number of guns being purchased and whether or not the purchase is part of a pawn transaction. I then call NICS and give our FFL number and password to the operator who then goes down the form and takes the information from me. (Knowing the NATO phonetic alphabet is a plus.) After the operator has the info he/she then gives me what is called a NICS Transaction Number (NTN) and then either a Proceed, Delay, or Denied. After I receive the NTN and the status, I must repeat back the status. Though it is not required, I also repeat back the NTN to further check for errors.
If I get a Proceed, I usually ask for and record the operator's Brady ID number, thank them, and then proceed to box the gun and write up the receipt and ring up the sale. If I get a Delay then the operator gives me a date on which the firearm(s) may be transferred to the buyer, at our discretion, if we do not receive a Proceed before that date. The date is three business days later, not counting weekends. A Delay means NICS is doing further research. A Delay only happens after I have been transferred from the operator to an examiner. Often the examiner will give a Proceed, but not infrequently a Delay. Delay can be triggered by having a DUI, having a very common name and not providing a Social Security number, having a government security clearance, or having stats very similar to known criminals. There are a host of other reasons, but NICS never tells us why they give us the status they do. As I tell customers, NICS could call us back in an hour, or they might not call us back before the allowed transfer date. If we do not hear from NICS by the transfer date, it is our store's policy to call for a final status. If we are given a status of "No Resolution" and we have no reason not to feel ok with the transfer, we proceed with the sale. The owner, btw, has made it very clear that any one of his staff may decline a sale for any reason and if we need to quite literally tell someone to "get the fuck out of the store" we should not hesitate.
If a person is Denied, well then, too damn bad, no sale. Most people who are denied fill out the 4473 knowing they will be denied or weren't sure but are not surprised, though they may fain confusion or surprise. Some people know they will be denied but go through the process hoping to find a dealer stupid enough to sell the gun anyway. People who really don't know why they are denied can make an appeal to NICS and if they really are clean will be issued a Unique Personal Identification Number (UPIN). The appeals process can take up six months to a year. Occasionally, about once a year I meet a person with a UPIN.
If you are a dealer and you are not careful about how you do business, you are an idiot and you will get caught. There are lots of idiots out there and they get caught. The number of FFLs has dropped significant in the last couple of decades. I can't quickly find the exact numbers, but in 1993 there were close to 250,000 licensed dealers in the US. Now there are roughly less than 10% of that. After the Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994 the ATF cracked down and pulled a lot of licenses. The agency also disallowed what amounted to "home" FFLs, people who had FFLs simply to save money on buying guns for themselves and friends. A dealer must now have a minimal amount of hours that they are open for business and the ATF strongly prefers a separate premises for doing business.
Undercover ATF agents attend gun shows and check in on stores by attempting to make illegal purchases. I know they have been in the store and at shows on days I work, the owner and his wife have spotted some. (One was an Asian man with an attempt at a Chinese accent that was so bad that the owner's wife outright asked if he was ATF. He turned red and literally ran out of the store. Poor newbie.) Last year a couple of ATF agents walked in and I recognized one of them as a man I denied a sale to soon after I first started working at the shop, he said the gun was for a friend. I remember the event because he really pushed me and I was new and it was stressful. Local ATF know me and everyone else who works our shop. I also have met an FBI agent who works in the Anti-Terrorism Unit. We cooperate with with local and federal law enforcement when they ask specific questions. We do not cooperate with fishing expeditions, but this has not proved to be a problem. We also have a good relationship with local law enforcement. One of my co-workers is a reserve police officer and many local cops are customers.
Since entering the business six years ago, the owner has seen at least half a dozen Indiana FFLs go out of business, either through forced license forfeiture, arrest, suicide or simply not making it. It is a rough business, especially if you are not careful or haven't changed business practices with the times.
Our shop has done extremely well, even in what was an increasingly hard market. Gun and ammunition prices were going up well before the presidential election and the industry changed drastically with the coming of online business and gun auction sites. Customers are now able to shop around; if your prices are on average $50 to $100 more then someone five states away or two counties away, people find out and gladly pay the additional shipping and transfer fee or time and gas to drive. Guns no longer sell themselves, dealers and their staff can no longer get away with being grumpy, apathetic or arrogant jerks, yet a lot of dealers remain that way. Our business has thrived because it was started by someone who was tired of being treated poorly by a big local store. Everyone who works at our shop started out as a customer in front of other dealer's counters. Its amazing what simple courtesy will achieve. The business is also very well run. We have the best prices because the owner buys in large quantities and isn't greedy about his profit margin. We have run other dealers out of business and we have done it all while operating above board.
So that is a summary of what is required to sell guns as an FFL in Indiana. Private sales between individuals fall under what is called the "gun show loop hole". Its a misnomer since the loop hole - the sale of a firearm without submitting the buyer to a NICS background check - applies to all private sales and not just those that occur at gun shows. Private sellers must still adhere to the same laws as FFLs, i.e. an individual may not sell a gun to a known prohibited person, someone who is underage for the type of gun or someone who is ineligible because they live in a different state. At our store, we emphasize the importance of at least creating receipts of the transaction and encourage the seller to process the transfer through the store. When we do a local transfer we require both parties be present, copy the ID of the seller (as is required of us by law) and then have the buyer complete a NICS check. We charge $20 and provide receipts to both parties. Private individuals who are experienced sellers will often only sell to other individuals who possess an Indiana Handgun License, which ensures that the buyer has at least undergone a state background check and was deemed fit to possess a handgun. Individuals who attempt to set up a business without an FFL get caught. I have witnessed it happen in 2009. We warned the dude.
I could go on. Part of what I enjoy most about my job is educating people about firearms, the issues of self-defense and concealed carry and answering questions about firearms laws. As I said at the beginning, I feel that the laws and regulations as they currently apply to FFL dealers are reasonable and sufficient. I welcome opinions to the contrary and am happy to answer any questions or clarify what I wrote. As I said, rules from state to state vary, but I am familiar with the laws of several other states as well.