Reading the letter from the gun shop, the conclusion I made was that they were avoiding a straw man purchase. It made clear that the reason for rejection was that the gun was destined for someone other than the person filling the 4473.
I know, they hinted at it. they did not come out in plain english and just say it was a straw man purchase. They should have. and they should have made a point to say such purchases are ILLEGAL as well.
Fully embarrass and also fully make people aware of exactly what his quickly-made, badly-constructed lie (because he only said this AFTER being discovered, he wasn’t going to do this until discovered) meant in legal terms.