[ilbob]

Newsweek ran an article on John McCain this past issue. In it they stated:

McCain backed a measure to close a gun-show loophole on background checks, but is otherwise supportive of gun rights.

I sent a LTE pointing out there is not, nor has there ever been a gun show loophole. Maybe if enough of us contact them about their misstatement they will print a correction.

BTW, the article itself was not too bad. A little tough on conservative commentators, but they can take it.

[Standing Wolf]

Maybe if enough of us contact them about their misstatement they will print a correction.

Might rain silver dollars later this evening, too. Newsweak has long been a fount of leftist extremist propaganda masquerading as "news."

[ilbob]

I got this email back from them.

Dear Mr. ILBob:

Thank you for your letter. We did not err. In fact, Congress took up a bill in the wake of Columbine to apply background checks to firearm sales between private individuals, which is the so-called gun show loophole. Most vendors at gun shows have licenses to sell firearms, which means they do the background check, but the law doesn't apply to people who do private sales at those events and elsewhere and that's what Congress tried to crack down on.

[CBS220]

By that logic, "everywhere" is a gun show, but at least they sort of understand the idea of it.

EDIT: Of course, they don't care about accurately representing the issue, just sensationalism and buzzwords.

[Old Fuff]

Perhaps Sen. McCain is unaware that private sellers cannot make background checks, but I doubt it. :scrutiny:

Under federal law, only licensed dealers can make background checks. If the legislation that McCain apparently supports is passed into law, all private sales at gunshows would have to be made through an FFL. The seller would have to turn the gun over to a dealer, who would record it in his/her bound book along with details concerning what the firearm was, and who the seller was.

They would then transfer the gun to the buyer, after going through the filling out of a #4473 form and making the background check. Either the seller, buyer or both should expect to pay a fee for this service.

The "Gunshow Loophole" is a scam. The purpose is to establish a paper trail on private sales, so that the guns could be regulated or even confiscated at some future time. The gun-banners know that it would be next to impossible to do what they plan, unless ALL gun sales were recorded in a central database.

The Democrats are also aware that Gun Shows are often used by pro-gun rights political candidates to link with those that attend, and would likely support them. Thus few tears would be shed on the liberal-left if Gun shows should go away.

Hopefully gun owners are not so dumb that they don't see through what's going on, and mail to the senator explaining this would be in order.