Vendors at gunshows filing off serial numbers

[9mm+]

Or if one is a convicted felon from Montana, they can just go to any gun store and purchase a firearm legally. In Montana all gun rights are restored as per the state constitution once a felon discharges his or her sentence. I'm not sure, but I have heard that Texas and Florida are the same way.

While this is true for Montana state law, it's still against federal law for a convicted felon to purchase firearms anywhere in the US. It's just another shining example of our US legal contradictions and conundrums...

 

[doc2rn]

Filing off or defacing a serial number no longer is a means of getting rid of the serial number. Used to be a vialble method up until the late 70s early 80s. Along came science and with acid washing the smoothed surface we can raise the number from the impression of the press on the slide making the metal under the stamp denser thus visable again.
I have only seen one weapon with an altered serial number, and that was at the home of a suicide attempt by a distraught husband back in '95. The lab easily raised the number back and found it was the same weapon he had legally purchased and filled out the proper paperwork on.
With today's modern scientific breakthroughs your professor seems ill informed. It is a felony to even be in posession of a firearm with an altered serial number.

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

This is an example of a professor, steeped in scholasticism, dispensing his unsupported version of knowledge to the naive and unsuspecting. The damage that he is creating at this level of education is possuibly irreparable. Here we have an eager mind, paying good money for an education, only to get half or non-truths pumped into him (her), to gratify a professor's ego or misguided philosophy. What most all the above have told you is the real truth. Only FOOLS would stand a table or walk a gunshow with guns with filed numbers, illegal machineguns, etc, and expect to walk freely for long. Many legit gunowners attending a gunshow would not even tolerate a fool like that, and might turn them in just to keep the reputation of the gunshow intact. The police (usually working for the event holder)even INSPECT carried in guns at the gunshows here in Ohio, and would most likely spot a filed serial number gun immediately. I guess we need to be vigilant of our educators, even at the college level, and challenge them accordingly, or report them to THEIR bosses. Constant vigilance and challenging authority is what makes this country FREE.

 

[Pweller]

I am college educated, but I have to say the older I get the less I value the opinion of a professor who hasn't been out in the real world. I find most professors are teaching about subjects that they have studied carefully, but have never actually practiced.

It's like taking a business class from somebody who has never actually run, or been involved in, an actual business. Everything they say is in my mind, unsupported without the background of experience. Essentially, it's all hearsay. Furthermore, if they were so knowledgeable about business, then they'd actually be running their own business instead of teaching college!

As a criminal justice student, how many of your professors have actually worked in the field? If they haven't, how can they really know what is the truth, and how valuable is their knowledge?

You are smart to question your professors, after all, this is about your future.

 

[Tim the student]

He's a self-described conservative but from this interaction has all the markings of a major anti.

The two are not mutually exclusive, just as "liberal" and anti are also not mutually exclusive. Usually, but not always.

 

[kda]

These days we are seeing bald faced lying all the time. Folks simply making stuff up out of thin air in an attempt to make a point or persuade someone. More specifically we see politicians and university professors changing what they say depending on the audience. They say what they wish was true, even when they know (or should know) it is not really true or accurate. It is now happening so often and at such high levels of our universities and our government that lying is becoming almost acceptable and expected. This dramatically complicates discussions of just about everything including 2nd Amendment rights and gun control agendas.

As gun owners, we are going to need to be especially careful to sort out the truth before we act. We need to be vigilant and untiring in our efforts to get good honest responsible information interjected into these discussions.

 

[Z-Michigan]

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.

Actually nearly all important inventions came from private inventors, not from professors at universities. And so did many of the greatest works of literature. Modern universities are a giant bureaucracy much like government. I say this as the child of someone with a Ph.D. who is a university administrator, and with two relatives with Yale Ph.D.'s, not to mention my own advanced degree from a very well known private university I don't feel like naming at the moment.

I know this is a thread veer so I'll stop here. I don't support ignorance, I simply wish to note that people can have "credentials" and still be quite ignorant - but are more dangerous because many of the other ignorant people assume that the person with credentials knows more or better than them.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

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.

The question is not one of opinion, but one of facts. The professor said dealers at gun show file off serial numbers -- he didn't present that as an opinion, but as a fact. He was wrong, and presenting a wrong fact to a class is an act of intellectual dishonesty.

 

[Tommygunn]

Good grief.
I have bought a number of guns at gun shows and examined many many many many more that I did not buy. Not ONCE did I see a defaced serial number.
The only time there's ever a gun w/o such a number is if it was made before 1968. Makers were not required by law to s/n their guns prior to '68. Many (maybe most) did, but even then some didn't. I have a Semiauto .22RF Remington 550-1 my father owned that was made in 1950 and it has no serial #.

This professor is severely misquided. He may not be lying, if he's "bought into" some liberal "excrement" about gun shows but he definantly needs his eyes open.

 

[mgkdrgn]

To put it bluntly, your "professor" is a moron. I would seriously question anything else he/she is attempting to "teach" you, and look for another section of the class taught by someone else.

 

[jfh]

A way into discussing this with him might be to inquire further about his definition of "gun dealers." My bet is that he is using the antigunner's definition of a dealer as "anyone who sells a gun." That is, that is what he will run with. Then, depending on your need for a good grade, you can gradually elicit more plaintext revelations of his antigun biases.

Jim H.

 

[Nicky Santoro]

OP,
The most charitable appellation I might ascribe to your professor is "pant load".

 

[Vern Humphrey]

A less charitable might be "fraud." After all, students pay a lot of money for college classes. A professor who deliberately or negligently puts out bad information is defrauding them of the value of the class.

 

[jimmyraythomason]

If I were to see a gun for sale at a gun show (or anywhere) I would just assume it was a ATF sting operation and would put miles between me and it.

 

[Diamondback6]

I'd say bet him dinner at the most expensive joint in town that if you two got to a gunshow looking for 'em you'll "Fail to Find".

Might as well make a little off the tool if you can, right? (A fool and his money are soon parted--so why not be the beneficiary of that parting if you can?lol)

 

[gilfo]

Ah the great education system we have here in Florida. It is why I am paying thru the nose to send my daughter to a school in another state.

 

[Legionnaire]

A professor who deliberately or negligently puts out bad information is defrauding them of the value of the class.

Well put ... and I'm an academic (and a conservative ... and a shooter ... and a hunter).

 

[KarenTOC]

I am college educated, but I have to say the older I get the less I value the opinion of a professor who hasn't been out in the real world. I find most professors are teaching about subjects that they have studied carefully, but have never actually practiced.

I agree. The best college-level instructor I ever had was one who hadn't even completed his college degree. The subject he taught (part time) was what he made his living doing. What a difference!

 

[TEDDY]

fraud

I would very seriously consider an other teacher.as I would question his truthfulness in any statement.what else has he lied about.some of you give him the benifit of mistaken I dont he is a lier plain and simple.as a professonal
he is supposed to know his facts as that is his professson to teach the facts.get rid of him.if no one questions these activists they will keep on corrupting there students.

 

[PandaBearBG]

Your professor is an idiot, basing facts of imaginations and probably dirty hippie folk-lore because that is what it sounds like. NO ONE vending at a gun-show would risk their license, reputation, freedom, and right to carry by commiting such a grave and serious felony. You and your buddy, put together a well organize and precise presentation clarify the laws and regulations of firearm sales and background checks in your state or other state and present it to you teacher and ask him to dispprove your findings as well finding ANY proof of his outrageous hippie minded claims, that should put him in his place.

I HATE hippies!

 

[SharpsDressedMan]

Diamondback6, I like your suggestion. Nothing like losing a bet & having to pay up to leave a lasting impression.

 

[Diamondback6]

SDM, the other angle is if my tuition's being defrauded out of me by some charlatan not delivering on contracted education services, might as well try to recover some of my money, right?

Especially fun with the boneheads who can't or won't learn... that way you have a steady revenue-stream. (Or at least always have someone paying for decent meals...) lol

 

[ColdCoffeeMug]

I can't drop the class now because registration has closed for the term. Even if they were open, this is the only section being taught. It's more than just a class time thing, the semester is based upon reviewing and making recommendations upon an anti-crime policy in an attempt to rectify my town's ranking as the number one murder rate and violent crime rate per capita in the state. It's something to the tune of a $34 million dollar program and apparently our opinion will hold some weight when we present to the mayor, sheriff and various other members of the city government. We'll all be published and it's one of those things that can make an academic career. Aside from directly confronting his beliefs stated above along with his statements that, "gun lobbyists wrongly believe that firearm possession is a human right," the only thing i think I can do is try to work the system and approach everything he says with suspicion until verified. The firearms subject is only one facet of this class.

 

[jmr40]

I didn't read the whole thread so someone else may have suggested this. Invite him to attend a gunshow as a "research project". Challenge him to find even 1 gun with the SN filed off. Heck, call it a class project and challenge all of the other students to find one at any shop or show.

 

[Kman]

your prof is simply in lustful agreement with a headline chasing media, he may or may not have the ability to rationalize, your best bet is to suggest a class meeting at a show, as stated above by JMR40, it could be a project, dissertation, strive to get it published! whatever, just allow them to explore the firearm culture, see that we are not all gang banging criminals.
I have in my years of scrounging around shows, 1989-present, run across two firearms that were intentionally defaced of serialization. Both times the whispers of "illegal gun" passed through the crowd much more quickly than the firearms themselves.