AlexanderA
Member
As I said in my earlier post, the gun community had developed a number of workarounds to address some of the pre-FOPA problems. For example, the proliferation of "kitchen table" FFL's meant that if you didn't have an FFL yourself, most likely one of your friends, neighbors, or co-workers did. A lot of people, therefore, could (directly or indirectly) buy not only ammunition, but guns themselves, through the mail. And with so many FFL's, the ATF was hard-pressed to conduct many compliance inspections, much less "abusive" compliance inspections.What is true is that if FOPA had not been signed, there would have probably been no law passed.
One of the worst results of FOPA, besides the Hughes Amendment ban on new machine guns, was the crackdown on "kitchen table" FFL's. If everybody and his brother could obtain an FFL (and, by paying an extra $200, also have SOT status), the face of the gun industry would be completely different. It would be dominated by mail order sales, even before the Internet. Of course brick-and-mortar local gun shops would disappear.
In the light of this analysis, it would appear that some segments of the gun industry -- such as local gun shops -- had a strong incentive to get FOPA passed at all costs. I have a feeling that the NRA was listening to them and not to ordinary gun consumers.