mudpuppy wrote:
Sorry, thread hijack--I thought it was legal for a parent to give a child a firearm as a gift? (assuming the child was legal to own)
and hawkmoon wrote:
It is a straw purchase if a person who is not elegible provides you with the money and you make the purchase for them in order to avoid the NICS check. It is not a straw purchase if a father buys a handgun using his own money and gives it to his 19-year old son who is legally allowed to possess a handgun, but not allowed to purchase a handgun.
there is a very fine line here. ATF says that a straw purchase does not require someone to hand someone else the money and then have that person purchase the firearm.
a straw purchase only requires that a person purchases it for someone else with the intent to avoid the NICS check.
since an 18 year old is FEDERALLY not able to purchase a firearm, the parent is clearly purchasing it, even if for a family member [i.e. his 18 year old son], with the intent of avoiding the NICS check. the 18 year old person is not FEDERALLY qualified to purchase a handgun per federal guidelines, hence, the nature of the purchase by the parent IS to avoid the NICS check.
hence it is a straw purchase.
the "gift" exception implies that the recipient of the gift him/herself would also pass the NICS check. presumably, this is not true since the 18-year-old recipient of the gift would not pass the NICS check due to his age being an immediate disqualification.
let's take the logic of an 18-year-old person being able to possess a handgun, even though federal guidelines prohibit it. let's apply that to a Title II firearm. let's say a transferable machine gun. all NFA items state the transferee listed on the Form 4 must be 21 years of age or older. so can an adult purchase this transferable machine gun for his 18-year-old son?
the answer is clearly "no." people may say "no" because all NFA ownership is recorded by the NFA Branch. however, this is not the issue. the issue is whether or not the purchase would be legitimate or a straw purchase under the eyes of FEDERAL law.
under Federal Law, either purchase, Title I or Title II, would be a straw purchase. it is just easier to see it is a straw purchase with a Title II weapon.
however the Form 4473 is filled out with either a Title I or Title II firearm.
so it appears that it is still a straw purchase, if it is a handgun purchase, and the parent is purchasing it for his/her 18-year-old child with the intent of avoiding a NICS check for their son/daughter who cannot legally purchase it themselves.
