Another "Gun Sales Surge" thread.

[K191145]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/gun-sales-surge-in-virginia-after-newtown/2012/12/28/0ad349e8-511a-11e2-839d-d54cc6e49b63_story.html



I know there's been other threads about surging gun sales since Obama was elected and re-elected, and some have critisized people for panic buying but if they ever had a real reason to panic buy, now is definatly the time. I know it runs up prices but I can understand why people are buying, and i'm glad they are. I'm sure many who are buying up the AR's already have at least one or adding one to their collection of non-semi-auto long guns, then there's many who may own very few guns who want theirs before the ban. Anyway, it shows us and some politicians that there are alot of people who still believe in their right to own firearms, and it shows the consequences of "TALK" from capitol hill about strict gun legislation, you just wind up selling more guns. And do they really think all these buyers who have just spent $1000+ on their new symbol of individual freedom, will simply turn it back in, or sell it back to the government for $100, or even register it? So right now I do believe all this panic buying is a good thing, if I had the extra cash I would be looking for an AR. Another thing, if we stop any new legislation from passing, and a decent conservative canidate is elected POTUS in 4 years, there may be some good afordable AR's for sale from those who panic bought this year. Edited December 30, 2012 by K191145

[K191145]

From the artical.

The area’s surge in gun sales is playing out in a year during which the FBI reported a record 16.8 million in background checks for guns.

16.8 million? that's quite a few guns this year. Edited December 30, 2012 by K191145

[TMF]

From what I can tell from visiting Gunbroker, maybe half of folks are panic buying because they're worried about the ban. The other half are scooped up as much as possible after the CT shooting so they could turn around and sell for three times what they paid.

[Hershmeister]

Perfect match of supply and demand then! Lol

[DaveTN]

The other half are scooped up as much as possible after the CT shooting so they could turn around and sell for three times what they paid.

I usually don’t hope anyone gets arrested on guns charges. But I hope some of these guys flipping guns for a profit get their azz busted.

[mikegideon]

I usually don’t hope anyone gets arrested on guns charges. But I hope some of these guys flipping guns for a profit get their azz busted.

Yep. We need to keep criminal behaviour out of the gun community, at least until they succeed in making us all criminals.

Edited December 30, 2012 by mikegideon

[runco]

I usually don’t hope anyone gets arrested on guns charges. But I hope some of these guys flipping guns for a profit get their azz busted.

This was a reason I stopped selling guns 20+ years ago.  I did sell a few guns for a brief small period of time as an individual, then I stopped when I acquried my FFL for a legtimate business endeavor.  Never have sold one since as an individual without a bill of sale.  Just remember each and every gun that is purchased on a 4473 will have a 20 year tracibitliy.  Though it is not against the law to sell a gun occasionally, if a gun was used in a crime, and the oringal owner purchased the gun on a 4473, and then sold it a short time later, though legal, the seller could have a hard time convincing a jury that he/she was not happy with the gun purchase, and simply wanted to get rid of it, combined with the prosecutor could prove significant money was made in between the transaction.  This could spell disaster for the seller, and could prove that the seller was acting like a FFL dealer.  This is a very gray area, and the stars and planets would have to allign, but could. 

Edited December 30, 2012 by Runco

[JayC]

I usually don’t hope anyone gets arrested on guns charges. But I hope some of these guys flipping guns for a profit get their azz busted.

 

Why?  Buying a couple of guns and flipping them for more money is not being in the business of selling guns.  I'm guessing you're all for the ATF stings where they go offer a guy $200 more for a gun he just purchased and then charge him with a felony when he agrees?

 

And I'm betting a fair number of the people making said profit have FFL's in one form or another anyhow.

[DaveTN]

Why? Buying a couple of guns and flipping them for more money is not being in the business of selling guns. I'm guessing you're all for the ATF stings where they go offer a guy $200 more for a gun he just purchased and then charge him with a felony when he agrees?

No, I’m just pizzed off that I can’t do it; it’s a crime.

Just kidding; I wouldn’t do that.

Very rarely does “entrapment” actually apply when used. However, the situation you are describing is entrapment if the person was not selling the gun.  Why would the ATF need to entrap legal gun buyers when all they need to do is pay attention and they could have all the illegal sellers they wanted?

And I'm betting a fair number of the people making said profit have FFL's in one form or another anyhow.

I have only seen one person locally jacking the price through the roof so far, he turns a lot of guns, and I am absolutely sure he doesn’t have an FFL.

[JayC]

I'm no expert on NFA of 34 and the GCA of 68, but I'm fairly certain that selling a firearm for a profit does not meet the requirements of being in the business of selling guns.

 

There are reported cases of the ATF doing exactly that back in the 1990's, I just got done reading a book about a couple of said cases.  The ATF in the late 80's and early 90's pulled some crazy stunts, including having the head of the NFA branch instruct agents to lie under oath about the registry database on video tape.

 

 

 

Let me say that when we testify in court, we testify that the data base is 100 percent accurate. That's what we testify to, and we will always testify to that. As you probably well know, that may not be 100 percent true.

 

You can read the entire transcript here: http://www.gunowners.com/ip05.htm

 

So yeah I have no hard feelings about a guy selling some rifles at a profit...  nothing in my book illegal about that at all...  Then again I only buy, I've never sold a gun to anybody outside my blood family.

 

No, I’m just pizzed off that I can’t do it; it’s a crime.

Just kidding; I wouldn’t do that.

Very rarely does “entrapment” actually apply when used. However, the situation you are describing is entrapment if the person was not selling the gun.  Why would the ATF need to entrap legal gun buyers when all they need to do is pay attention and they could have all the illegal sellers they wanted?

I have only seen one person locally jacking the price through the roof so far, he turns a lot of guns, and I am absolutely sure he doesn’t have an FFL.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Just because something may be dumb doesn't make it illegal, nor should it be. Buying and selling a handful of guns doesn't make you a dealer. Buying and selling anything doesn't make you a dealer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[K191145]

Well, another good thing about the sales surge is that 16.8 million guns sold this year can't be banned, and I do believe many new buyers are getting theirs before the ban "attempt". Also there's a huge increase in NRA memberships.

[TMF]

[quote name="6.8 AR" post="872639" timestamp="1356920339"]Just because something may be dumb doesn't make it illegal, nor should it be. Buying and selling a handful of guns doesn't make you a dealer. Buying and selling anything doesn't make you a dealer. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/quote] I was under the impression that purchasing firearms for the expressed purpose of reselling fora profit was a felony unless you have an FFL. Am I wrong?

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I think there may be some kind of threshold with the number without an FFL from the ATF, but I am no expert.

You can buy and sell a few guns without claiming to be a dealer. We do it amongst each other all the time, just

won't be able to sell them as "new". As far as I'm concerned, if you represent them as "new" you probably crossed

their threshold without an FFL. It may or may not be a felony if that was your only intent, but I think that is pushing

things too far. Sometimes, it is difficult to prove intent. My transactions are only casual sales and purchases, so I won't ever be testing that, any time soon.

Edited December 31, 2012 by 6.8 AR

[TMF]

If a person purchases a half dozen lower receivers then puts them up on Gunbroker only a few days later at a 200% markup, it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. There are many folks on there selling several brand new firearms which surely were purchased shortly after the CT shooting. I can't prove it, but it would not be too difficult for the ATF to figure it out. Same for the folks who cleared out Walmart shelves only to immediately put those ARs up for sale and turn 1,000 in profit in a few days. That is a felony no matter how you slice it. That is much different than someone deciding they're going to use the recent spike in prices and offload some firearms for some more Christmas jingle. When you are doing it to turn a profit you are a business, and require an FFL. If you don't have one, you're committing a crime.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Maybe it is, but it also tells you how ridiculous the law probably is and how enforceable it may not be. Don't know. The ATF has so many regs that I will never bother with learning because my activity is solely for personal use and occasional trading around. The term "dealer" probably is defined specifically by them, but in the case of all this panic crap going on, they have years worth of cases to work on and it is not going to hurt my feelings watching them fail on this issue. Any time you have someone else setting the rules for commerce, and a crazy event happens,partially caused by government actions or the fear of them, commerce is going to see swings. The ATF doesn't do many things other than restrict something that I think could be handled differently. I won't be breaking any laws, but otherwise I don't care. That's one part of the government that could fall off the face of the Earth as far as I'm concerned. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest 6.8 AR]

The dreaded double tap! Edited December 31, 2012 by 6.8 AR

[TMF]

My issue is I don't care for folks who break the law so they can screw people who abide by it. That is going on right now and it gives me a dim view of some of the folks we have in the gun owning community.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

And I'm in total agreement with you about that. I just disagree with so many gun laws to begin with that so many things the ATF does that are politically motivated and their activities with things like Fast and Furious that I have a bad attitude about them. People are going to do things like what's going on right now, and maybe there are some things that are illegal, but fear is involved about future gun laws. I wish real criminals would be dealt with. This is only part of the big show. All the government will do is make more good people into criminals. I'm really tired of that a lot more. These people who could be breaking a law like you are saying are an aberrancy. A temporary inconvenience. I'm more concerned with having "just" laws being on the books and the ATF doesn't personify justice to me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Speculation is the half-brother of gambling or perhaps even a better-dressed sibling of gambling. Perhaps ordinary old horse-trading is a mere second cousin. I wouldn't indulge in either speculation or gambling and haven't the temperament for horse-trading but OTOH am not inclined to outlaw it. Like "fair odds" gambling (not gambling against a rigged game or house odds), speculation is a dual-edged sword that can punish as likely as it rewards, regardless whether the gubmint gets involved. :)

 

But waxing more philosophical, all of life is a gamble which rewards and punishes according to the odds. One can hedge bets and operate in a fashion to put the odds in one's favor, but regardless is a chaotic process. Not quite random, but it is difficult to discriminate between random versus a chaotic system because the results are near identical just looking at the data.

 

If one estimates that toilet paper will get expensive and lays in a supply of toilet paper it is a mild form of speculation. If one estimates that being a doctor will be more profitable than the considerable expense, then putting 10 years into becoming a doctor would be quite a big speculation as well.

[runco]

Imagine for a moment someone purchased and flipped a AR purchased from Walmart post CT. Made a cool $1k profit. Suppose the gun was flipped one more time. This time a wacky person had it and repeated the CT school where another group of children were killed. Imagine the heat and full weight of the U.S. government plus media coming down on the buyer that bought the AR from Walmart. The original buyer may or may not have broken the law, but most likely $20K later or more in attorney fees to help clear their name, they can sit back and enjoy the $1k profit, and look through the photo album of newspaper clippings of thier picture being posted everywhere.

Most of us have never been subjected to a gun trace investigation, especially where a homocide is involved, where we may have been the original gun owner. Over the years I have read in other places about the intense heat and pressure from local authorities about the gun sale transaction in these gun sale traces. In some cases the authorities attempt to prove you did not follow the law in selling the firearm, or you are acting like a non-licensed dealer. They will try everyway to smear you. If they can establish a pattern of buying and trading, they will let a jury decide if the person was acting like a non-licensed dealer or not. The law is gray on what is and what is not private individual acting like a gun dealer. Me personally I do not want the responsibility or roll the dice to get caught up in anything that could hurt me and my family. That is why over a lifetime of being associated with guns, I have amassed a collection. I rarely trade or sale, in fact I don't. Edited December 31, 2012 by Runco

[DaveTN]

I was under the impression that purchasing firearms for the expressed purpose of reselling fora profit was a felony unless you have an FFL. Am I wrong?

No, you aren’t wrong, except for the profit part. It’s unlawful to buy a gun with the intent of reselling it, profit is not a requirement. Of course it wouldn’t make much sense without a profit.
Even though the ATF won’t put out a number of guns sold that constitutes illegal gun sales you can look at a few of the cases and see that the number is not that high. 25 maybe 50 in a year. A single event usually gains their attention and its downhill from there.

My issue is I don't care for folks who break the law so they can screw people who abide by it. That is going on right now and it gives me a dim view of some of the folks we have in the gun owning community.

This.
Doesn’t matter if it’s illegal or not. Buying up all the magazines, doubling or tripling the price and listing them on-line is wrong. It’s no different (to me) than the gas station owners that put gas at $10 a gallon in New Orleans during Katrina. They changed the laws so those people could be put in handcuffs and taken to jail.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Buying up all the magazines, doubling or tripling the price and listing them on-line is wrong. It’s no different (to me) than the gas station owners that put gas at $10 a gallon in New Orleans during Katrina. They changed the laws so those people could be put in handcuffs and taken to jail.

 

 

I understand the sentiment but am wary of "reasonable profit" laws. Ferinstance a smalltime craftsman might make a relatively modest income taking scrap logs and turning them into valuable works of art (but with low output and low sales volume). The fella's schedule C would show thousands of percent profit and be restricted to selling his wares at a "reasonable" rate that would drive him out of business.

 

How do you write a law enforcing "reasonable profit" on opportunists while also protecting a fella as described above? Some kind of "anti-bubble" law? With provisions that if other people "need" your stock-in-trade bad enough, not only do you have to nearly break-even on sales, but you also sometimes have to give it away?

 

A small time service station operator, if he sees the "writing on the wall" that next order of gas will double in price. If he sells out what is in his tanks at a "reasonable profit" then he might have to go to the bank begging for an emergency loan to buy the next fill-up, because he won't have enough cash on hand to refill his tanks. If he doesn't hike his price right away and make obscene profit on what is currently in his tanks, he is gonna be in trouble if operating on a shoestring.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[DaveTN]

I understand the sentiment but am wary of "reasonable profit" laws. Ferinstance a smalltime craftsman might make a relatively modest income taking scrap logs and turning them into valuable works of art (but with low output and low sales volume). The fella's schedule C would show thousands of percent profit and be restricted to selling his wares at a "reasonable" rate that would drive him out of business.
 
How do you write a law enforcing "reasonable profit" on opportunists while also protecting a fella as described above? Some kind of "anti-bubble" law? With provisions that if other people "need" your stock-in-trade bad enough, not only do you have to nearly break-even on sales, but you also sometimes have to give it away?
 
A small time service station operator, if he sees the "writing on the wall" that next order of gas will double in price. If he sells out what is in his tanks at a "reasonable profit" then he might have to go to the bank begging for an emergency loan to buy the next fill-up, because he won't have enough cash on hand to refill his tanks. If he doesn't hike his price right away and make obscene profit on what is currently in his tanks, he is gonna be in trouble if operating on a shoestring.

I’m not suggesting any reasonable profit laws. I’m suggesting you don’t do business with people or businesses that are hosing you.

However, selling guns as a business is a crime unless you are licensed to do it. Anyone that thinks they can buy up AR’s and then sell them off at a substantial profit is free to try. They run the same risk any other criminal does.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I’m not suggesting any reasonable profit laws. I’m suggesting you don’t do business with people or businesses that are hosing you.

However, selling guns as a business is a crime unless you are licensed to do it. Anyone that thinks they can buy up AR’s and then sell them off at a substantial profit is free to try. They run the same risk any other criminal does.

 

No argument on avoiding doing biz with people who take advantage when they have you over a barrel. Karma. What goes around comes around. Was speaking to the comment about katrina gas price and the laws they spawned.

 

A fella wanting to legally make a speculative killing on AR related gear, seems legally safer to deal in uppers, mags, flash hiders, that sort of thing? Are there laws against a non-licensed individual moving uppers or mags at obscene profit short-term, as long as he pays relevant taxes and doesn't fracture local business law too drastically? It would still be the equivalent of katrina gas prices, so there would be customer's choice to be grossed-out at the speculation, but would it need an FFL?