Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Buying Guns in the Classifieds

Deseret News reports

Questions about the ad category came up as reporters from KSL's sister company, Deseret News, were interviewing sources for a story on guns in Utah. Some alleged that the wildly successful site is not only a marketplace for legitimate gun owners to buy and sell handguns, but that it has potential to be a haven for those seeking to get around legal restrictions. Several sellers also said they only sell unregistered guns, since they don't want potential problems to come back against them.


State and federal laws prohibit the sale of handguns to minors or felons, but while licensed gun dealers must verify age and run a background check, no such requirement exists for private gun sales like those advertised on KSL Classifieds. It would also be difficult to police a law banning the sale of a gun to someone who lives in a different state.

There's no evidence any laws have been broken by buyers and sellers who find each other through KSL.com, but that it could happen is troubling, Atkinson said.
That famous pro-gun excuse about there being no evidence when something is obvious is not going to work much longer. Honest people admit, not only that the possibility is troubling, but that it does happen. The only question is does it happen enough that we want to stop it. Obviously the answer is "yes."

I wouldn't be surprised if these media people are reading the writing on the wall and seeing that background checks on all gun sales is coming as a national policy, are making the appropriate changes now.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

1 comment:

  1. "I wouldn't be surprised if these media people are reading the writing on the wall and seeing that background checks on all gun sales is coming as a national policy"

    In your wet dreams.

    ReplyDelete