Vendors at gunshows filing off serial numbers

Your Professor is full of crap & making things up .

That doesn't surprise me . It still makes me disgusted , but not surprised.

Dealers are not filing off serial numbers - in more than 40 years of attending gun shows I have yet to see one gun at a show with defaced serial numbers. It is a felony to tamper with the serial number, or possess a firearm with the serial number altered.

Your professor is letting his liberal idiocies out. Defacing a serial number is a Federal crime. Nobody at a gun show is going to do that. This is yet another instance of someone trying to fit his personal paranoia and preconceived opinions into his world view.
I have NEVER seen a gun so defaced. Best thing to do is turn back on this fellow and demand proof beyond his somewhat hazy recollection.

And don't forget to mention that the "gun show loophole" is the code word for two adults legally agreeing to sell a legally owned piece of property between themselves.
Funny how there is no "Parking Lot Loophole" for people who sell cars but are not car dealers.

With all the BATmen trolling gunshows I would say that the "life expectency" of anyone - dealer or not - filing serial numbers off would be very short indeed.

Another perfect example of the brainwashing of America by the left. Say it over and over and over and eventually the vast uneducated will believe it is true.

Wow, now I have heard it all. Perhaps you and the professor can take a field trip together to the next gun show. Afterwards, you can serve him a plate full of crow to eat.

Yeah.. bring him to a gun show and challenge him find ONE SINGLE filed gun.. if he doesnt, let him change his version publicly..

Not once. Not ever in 25 years of gun deals.

I did have a buyer get hysterical once because I sold him an old 22 that had never had a serial #.

After I posted a note on a gun forum and twenty people explained that it was OK on pre-1968 guns he finally calmed down.

Your professor is mistaken, to say the very least.

Yeah.. bring him to a gun show and challenge him find ONE SINGLE filed gun.. if he doesnt, let him change his version publicly..

Click to expand...

I think liberals melt when you make them confront logic directly. Kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West and water.

so let them melt

Dealers don't want to deal with the law, even less so than anyone else. The ATF is likely to freeze up their business while they get checked out.

It's illegal to deface a serial number.

I'm sure it's illegal to buy a gun with a defaced serial number, and it's certainly illegal to sell it.

And the dealers (not private sellers, who rent a booth to dump off their collection) do have to do a background check. The loophole isn't, because it's just a person selling it to another person, the same as buying a used car or couch.

Your professor's not only ignorant, but willing so. I won't even blame it on being liberal at this point--ignorance isn't just a liberal thing--but he's obviously generally a blockhead. I'm still honestly amazed how many people I've met in the educational fields that are enthusiastically ignorant and stubbornly closed-minded, and he's one of them.

Have never seen this in person. I think if I were transported into a 50's mafia noir film I might find a gun with serial #'s filed off.

Sounds like you were very circumspect and professional in handling this. A bit surprised to hear about this in criminal justice class, I am.

I love it! It's a criminal conspiracy that lives in a vacuum. The thought that flyers and radio ads go out and people come in, yet: Cops never show up to look around, or to even shop for themselves? How is it these gun shows hold all of these "illegal sales" and never have been busted? Wow! That's some weapons grade ignorant right there.

Deus Machina said:

Your professor's not only ignorant, but willing so. I won't even blame it on being liberal at this point--ignorance isn't just a liberal thing--but he's obviously generally a blockhead. I'm still honestly amazed how many people I've met in the educational fields that are enthusiastically ignorant and stubbornly closed-minded, and he's one of them.

Click to expand...

I say this carefully. I have spent years in academia outside of being an undergrad student, and I have a lot of respect for the culture.

Someone once pointed out to me that people can have crazy, wrong, or extreme views in academia because "if they are wrong, it doesn't matter".

This can result in free thought, good discussion, and protection of important minority ideas (otherwise maybe we'd be in the dark ages still). But, it can protect a fair amount of idiocy. Especially if padded in tenure.

Just wait until libertarianism and gun rights become more fashionable. Then it'll be a wave of academic posturing to support it. Sigh..

has anyone here ever come across defaced serial numbers at a gun show?

Click to expand...

No. If your professor can name one verifiable instance, I'd love to see it. If he has ever been at a gun show, I'd love to hear about his experiences of people selling fully automatic weapons to each other, live grenades, and rusty handguns with no SN anymore.

Not only is he full of it, I think he knows he is, and that makes him a lying POS.

Your professor is an idiot IMHO.

This can result in free thought, good discussion, and protection of important minority ideas (otherwise maybe we'd be in the dark ages still). But, it can protect a fair amount of idiocy. Especially if padded in tenure.

Click to expand...

True, but the free thought without accountability feeds upon itself and creates intractable arguments via-a-vis *established* facts.

ColdCoffeeMug, ask your prof to bring in any newspaper accounts he has where this has been documented to happen. That should slow him down.

Your professor's not only ignorant, but willing so. I won't even blame it on being liberal at this point--ignorance isn't just a liberal thing--but he's obviously generally a blockhead. I'm still honestly amazed how many people I've met in the educational fields that are enthusiastically ignorant and stubbornly closed-minded, and he's one of them.

Click to expand...

I am continually amazed by how many people think those in education are ignorant or closed minded because they don't share the same views as the person making the claim. Based on what I read on this board, nearly everyone in education, the media, the government, all liberals, and a lot of cops must be blockheads because they don't share our views. Keep in mind that we make some pretty naive and ignorant claims as well.

I am continually amazed by how many people think those in education are ignorant or closed minded because they don't share the same views as the person making the claim. Based on what I read on this board, nearly everyone in education, the media, the government, all liberals, and a lot of cops must be blockheads because they don't share our views. Keep in mind that we make some pretty naive and ignorant claims as well.

Click to expand...

Now, I never said that as a complete blanket statement, and I'd thank you very much not to assume I did. And note that I did say that it's not just a liberal thing; the far right often honestly frighten me with some of their statements but this isn't the place for that.

Admittedly, it's the people we disagree with that stand out.

I don't have any problem with differing opinions, as long as people admit it's just that: opinion. If you can't back anything with solid fact or try to pass your opinion off as fact or law, or try to force it upon other people under the guise of "I have a degree in [likely unrelated field] so I'm RIGHT!" then you need to quiet down until you can back it up.

"I don't see the use for a handgun, and don't think you can trust gun show dealers." Opinion, respectable, no accusations.

"Gun show dealers routinely file off serial numbers/sell unregistered FA guns/will saw off shotguns illegally, etc." Announced erroneously as fact without evidence or even anecdote, is simply slander.

What my problem with educators is--and again, this is hardly a blanket statement--is that they are only people, the same as any group. But they seem to be just as narrow-minded, ignorant, and biased as the public at large, in many jobs that, by definition, should require that they keep an unbiased view, and learn the facts and statistics before announcing their viewpoint to the people they're paid to teach.

I`m thinking this guy is a closet.........anti gun dope.

i'd find a flier to the next gun show, and ask him to come along so he can educate you on what he's talking about.

9mm+ said:

Perhaps you and the professor can take a field trip together to the next gun show.

Click to expand...

http://floridagunshows.com/Schedule.htm

I'll pay his enterance fee.

-Jim
(PS. I own a gun without a serial number on it... It was my Great-Great-Grandpa's double barrel shotgun. It was made sometime between 1885 and 1907. Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!)

achildofthesky said:

Call him on it. Tell him you think he is not mistaken but lieing.

Click to expand...

Not a good way to treat anyone, friend or enemy. He is misguided. Try a little logic and a field trip.

Besides, the OP is one of his students. Talk about asking to get screwed over on a grade!

-Jim

I have attended gun shows for over 60 years, and never saw a gun with a defaced serial number. What I have seen is law enforcement officers from all levels of government - some on duty, while others were simply enjoying the show. It would be next to impossible to display such a firearm and not have it discovered. This is also the reason criminals seldom try to buy guns at gun shows. It would be like trying to purchase something at a police station.

I presume that if vendors were actually selling guns with defaced serial numbers there would be a lot of reports of such an outrage in the mostly anti-gun mainstream news media. Thus your professor should be able to google up some examples. You might try to do the same to help save him the trouble.