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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

It’s illegal (federal) to fill out the purchase form and run a background check on your name if you are buying it for someone else.

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True, but the ability to privately sell firearms creates plausible deniability for a lot of straw purchases. A seller could have claimed to lawfully sold it to some other resident in a state with no background checks. If the gun ended up in a criminal's hands it must have been that person who sold it, or maybe a whole bunch of intermediate buyers.

All transfer across state lines must go through an FFL and a NICS check by law. The only sale/transfer allowed without a NICS check is between two residents of the same state when the seller has no reason to believe or suspect that the purchaser is prohibited. Realistically that leaves a very narrow window of purchases that are unlawful but the seller has plausible deniability.

> The only sale/transfer allowed without a NICS check is between two residents of the same state when the seller has no reason to believe or suspect that the purchaser is prohibited.

Say the seller transfers a gun they've owned for several years to an out-of-state prohibited person. The gun turns up in crime. The original purchases lies and says they sold it just one year after ownership to an in-state person, and haven't possessed this gun for several years. There's no requirement for sellers to keep record of who they sold firearms to, so it's hard to prove this defense wrong.

The jury isn't just there to protect you. It's also there to send you away when you are obviously trying to hack the system.

"Oh, gee, I just bought the gun on Tuesday and sold it on Thursday for no particular reason. It just happens that the gun appreciated by 20% during that time and my friend really didn't want to spend so much gas getting all the way to the gun store anyway. Who would have guessed such a fine person would be a felon? Same for the other 14 counts."

The average time between when a gun is bought from an FFL and subsequently used in crime is something like 20 years IIRC. The person who bought it new could more often than not easily claim to have sold it years ago, and passed through countless intermediate owners.

It is legal to buy a firearm under your name as a gift. Straw purchase has a very specific meaning. Buying on a Monday then selling to someone on Tuesday is not a straw purchase.

A straw purchase is someone asking you to purchase on their behalf and doing things like providing funds, telling you how to fill out the form and/or coming to the store with you. Those are the people that end up convicted.

You can think of it similar to tax evasion. Failing to declare $10,000 in income because you didn't understand the tax code is not a crime. Intentionally hiding $10,000 of income is.

The GP was stating that federal authorities aren't serious about stopping straw purchases.

If I purchase for myself, and then sell it to someone else, when does that constitute a straw purchase?

> If I purchase for myself

If that is your earnest intent when you bought it, then ostensibly it would be legal. However...

Laws aren't computer code; gray areas get hashed out in court. How often you've done this and the amount of time that passed between the purchase and sale would be considered, as well as any paper trail you might have left. Simply put, there is no firm answer to your question. Talk to a real lawyer if you think you're wading into a gray area like that.

Or do the transfer via a licensed dealer. Most gun shops will do this for a small fee.

> Laws aren't computer code; gray areas get hashed out in court. How often you've done this and the amount of time that passed between the purchase and sale would be considered, as well as any paper trail you might have left. Simply put, there is no firm answer to your question. Talk to a real lawyer if you think you're wading into a gray area like that.

Exactly.

My point was that GP skipped straight over the fact that this is significantly difficult to prosecute, and stated with no evidence that the federal authorities must "not be serious" about it.

Buying a gun for somebody else is legal if it's a gift. But if it's a "gift" in exchange for some favor or service, that doesn't count. No quid pro quo.

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