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The Biden administration announced Thursday morning that the Department of Justice has finalized a new rule that requires many gun sellers offering firearms at gun shows or online to obtain a license and conduct background checks. The new rule is set to be enforceable in 30 days. Current rules require licensed gun dealers to perform criminal background checks on purchasers, but private sales have long been exempted. The new rule intends to require those who sell guns to earn a profit to obtain a license and register. The White House said that if a person is repetitively selling guns of...

A new proposed rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives would increase what is required to obtain a federal firearms license (FFL) for gun sellers across the country -- an attempt to end what gun control advocates term "the gun show loophole." Justice Department officials told reporters that prior to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was signed into law last June, those "engaged in the business" of a firearms dealer were defined broadly. The definition that ATF is proposing is more specific in an effort to better regulate the market in accordance with the new federal...

Sens. Manchin and Toomey announced their ‘compromise’ on expanding background checks Wednesday, which, among other things, closes the “gun show loophole.” By law, all federal firearms licensees are required to conduct background checks for firearms transactions—even at a gun show. But gun control advocates repeatedly say that 40 percent of all gun purchases at gun shows are private sales and thus, not subject to a background check. Where are they getting this figure from and is it true? Heritage weighs in: As The Washington Post has pointed out, this 40 percent figure comes from a 1997 report by the National Institute of Justice, a research...

What is "Closing The Gunshow Loophole" ? At the top of the list of changes to gun transaction restrictions the left has bleated on for years is what they have deceptively labelled "Closing The Gunshow Loophole". On it's face, it would seem they are referring to firearms transactions that occur at gunshows between private parties not involving an NICS background check. When you listen carefully, though, you also hear the Progressive explanations include firearms transactions that occur at other venues such as flea markets. Every now and then, if you listen really closely, the liberal will let slip that the...

Listings websites "really needs to clean up its act," sez Hizzoner The notorious “gun show loophole” that gives criminals and maniacs easy access to firearms has gone online. Undercover investigators for the city found thousands of guns - including one just like the 9mm Ruger that killed Officer Peter Figoski on Monday - being sold online by private peddlers who don’t have to perform background checks on buyers. Not only did investigators find it a breeze to buy pistols and assault rifles with no questions asked, but 77 of 125 sellers in 14 states agreed to complete the sale even...

THERE MAY NEVER be a better spokesman for closing the gun show loophole than Adam Yahiye Gadahn. A 32-year-old American and convert to Islam, Mr. Gadahn referred to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as “blessed raids” and called for additional “jihad against America.” He has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list and faces criminal charges for treason and for providing material support to al-Qaeda. Mr. Gadahn is believed to have left his native Orange County, Calif., for Pakistan, where he has become a multimedia front man for the terrorist organization. His latest message, released on the...

A fundamental principle of a free people is the ability to transfer property to someone else without government intervention. In the case of firearms, it is often a tradition to pass on a gun from one generation to another. Recently a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, commissioned a poll to determine how the public felt about tightening background checks on people that bought guns. It will come as little surprise that a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns wants additional restrictive legislation on the already restrictive process and they even bought...

In the wake of last month's deadly shooting in Arizona, Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg are throwing their support behind new gun control legislation whose passage in Washington is far from assured. NY1's Grace Rauh filed the following report.The numbers are bleak: every day 34 people in America are killed by guns. But Senator Charles Schumer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg hope to improve that staggering statistic with the passage of legislation they say is designed to prevent the next mass shooting."Americans want their government to take basic, common sense steps to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous...

National lawmakers were in Chicago holding a Congressional hearing on proposed gun control legislation today. The Closing the Gun Show Loophole Act would require private sellers at gun shows to perform background checks before selling firearms. Illinois passed a similar law in 2005. Jody Weis is superintendent of Chicago Police. He says the law should be implemented in all states. WEIS: It's just common sense legislation. I don't see how anyone could say this is restrictive when we're simply asking for a background check if you're going to buy a weapon. This is pretty simple to understand. Thirty-three states, including...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg's national anti-gun group is using the anniversary of the Columbine shooting to launch a campaign to close the gun show loophole. --snip-- Those senators are Mark Udall in Colorado, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins in Maine, Scott Brown in Massachusetts, George Voinovich in Ohio, and Jim Webb and Mark Warner in Virginia.

I have made no secret of my disdain for the fabricated concept of the so-called "gun show loophole," but a pair of Washington state lawmakers have managed to come up with a new approach to this "problem" (fewer than 1% of guns used in crimes purchased at gun shows) that has to win the prize for "Most Incomprehensibly Foolish Proposed Gun Show Restriction." Unlike other attempts to close the "loophole," HB 2477 (pdf file) would not require private sellers (as opposed to licensed dealers) to perform a criminal background check on prospective buyers, or to go through a licensed dealer...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Newspapers Gush Over Bloomberg's Latest Gun Control Escapade   Friday, October 09, 2009   Bathed in camera flashes during a "news conference" on October 7, 2009, New York City's mayor, Michael Bloomberg was in his element in announcing "a wide-ranging undercover investigation by the City of New York into illegal gun sales" that revealed "a willful disregard of the law" by "74% of gun show sellers." Or, so he claimed.  The ego-driven multi-billionaire's publicity stunt was neither "wide-ranging" nor representative of what occurs at gun shows, nor was it intended to be. ...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Brady Campaign And Lautenberg Unite To Mislead And Control--Again   Friday, April 24, 2009   This week, in a typically misleading move designed to bolster their political agenda rather than reduce violent crime, the Brady Campaign released a report calling for background checks on "all gun sales in America, including at gun shows."  The Brady report was intentionally designed to correspond with, and bolster, a "gun show loophole" bill (S. 843) introduced this week by fanatical anti-gun Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).  In fact, the Brady report was released at the press conference Lautenberg held earlier this...

Several high-ranking senators led by Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) on Tuesday relaunched their push to require gun sellers to conduct background checks on purchases of all types of guns at state gun shows. On the heels of the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine shootings the lawmakers pushed to close the gun show “loophole” that exists in more than 30 states. These states do not require personal gun sellers, who are authorized to hawk their own firearms at gun shows, to conduct a background check on buyers of the guns. This allows people with criminal histories to easily obtain weapons like those...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at it again. Two years ago, mere weeks after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Mr. Bloomberg, who seems to think most gun violence originates in Virginia, authorized a rogue sting operation, sending teams of private investigators into the Old Dominion to set up “straw” purchases of firearms. He did this without informing any of the pertinent authorities of his intention, thus eliciting somewhat more than quizzical looks from Gov. Kaine and Attorney General Bob McDonnell. Just this past week, Mr. Bloomberg took aim at Virginia yet again — and at Mr. McDonnell in...

What is the gun show loophole? It is the ability of a person to buy a gun from another attendee at the show, person to person, with no Instacheck to see if the buyer is a felon, or for any other reason should not be able to have a gun. If a person buys a gun from a Federal Fire Arms licensed dealer at the show, they must show ID and get the InstaCheck. On it's surface, this seems like a bad thing. The ABC television show 20/20 last Friday documented the ease with which a man bought lots of...

FAYETTEVILLE - On his website President-Elect Barack Obama discusses four different measures on guns: Repealing the Tiahrt Amendment, making the assault weapons ban permanent, making U.S. guns childproof, and closing the gun show loophole. Clint Cornett, owner of C&S Gun and Pawn Shop Inc. in Springdale says it's the assault weapons ban that has sales soaring. "We saw about a thirty percent increase in anything with a long clip like the AR-15, the A-K 47. Another hot issue is closing the gun show loophole, meaning individuals would no longer be able to sell or trade their guns at show without...

<p>For several years the Virginia General Assemby has declined to pass legislation to close the "gun-show loophole" that allows "unlicensed dealers" to sell firearms without a background check at gun bazaars.</p> <p>And for good reason.</p> <p>Gun-control advocates frequently toss around alarmist numbers such as this one: One-third of vendors at gun shows do not have a federal firearms license. They don't bother to mention that many of those vendors do not sell guns -- they sell T-shirts, bumper stickers, books, backpacks, military insignia, and so on.</p>

Two Democrats seek to widen the scope of background checks. A similar measure failed in Virginia. WASHINGTON — Gun-control advocates have been largely stymied in their efforts to get significant new firearms restrictions, but they still believe they can achieve one goal: closing a loophole that allows sales at gun shows without background checks on purchasers. This week, two Senate Democrats introduced legislation to close that loophole in federal law, despite a recent failure in Virginia -- where a gunman killed 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech in April -- to change a similar state law. Accompanied by family...

W. Gerald Massengill chaired the Virginia Tech Review Panel that minutely probed the April 16 shootings in Blacksburg. Mr. Massengill is also the former superintendent of the Virginia State Police. Thus, when he comes out in favor of ending the exemption on background checks in the sale or trade of firearms by unlicensed dealers, his is a voice that carries much resonance. We understand that. Nonetheless, we adjudge Mr. Massengill guilty of over-reaction, of throwing babies out with the bathwater. The horrific crimes of Seung-Hui Cho had absolutely nothing to do with the sale, purchase, or exchange of firearms at...