AG says illegal gun show sales commonplace

[We_Have_A_Problem]

Lax regulations at gun shows allow individuals to avoid background checks when purchasing firearms, according to the results of an ongoing investigation by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

"This is a serious matter of public safety," Schneiderman said at a press conference last Wednesday surrounded by guns purchased illegally by undercover investigators.

"The worst-kept secret in America is guns are really available to all at gun shows. I frankly was surprised and disappointed at how easy it was, no matter how aggressively our investigators asserted the fact that they did not pass background checks, how easy it was for them to obtain firearms."

Members of the attorney general's investigative team posed as prospective buyers at gun shows in Erie, Genesee, Saratoga, Schoharie, Suffolk and Washington counties. Though the team members explicitly told dealers they would not pass a background check, at times indicating the specific reasons why they wouldn't pass, the salesmen still sold these people firearms, said Schneiderman, who feels his investigators could have purchased "hundreds more."

That's the first few paragraphs. Now, what is very interesting to me, is THIS paragraph:


Describing what he was told, King said that the gun "salesmen" actually didn't have dealer's licenses and went to sell their own guns at gun shows to make some extra money. They were approached by the attorney general's investigators who, posing as prospective buyers, would offer the men "sometimes more money" for the guns than they were actually worth and buy them off of the individuals, as one person selling his firearm to another.

In short, the "investigators" specifically sought out NON-dealers, i.e. private party sellers who are explicitly forbidden from accessing NICS, and then charged them with not accessing NICS.

Seems the "commonplace" claim NY is trying to make really comes down to "as many as we could manufacture charges against"


Link to the original story: http://www.legislativegazette.com/Articles-Top-Stories-c-2011-12-05-81105.113122-AG-says-illegal-gun-show-sales-commonplace.html