NEW ATF Rule: You Can Go To Jail For Selling A Gun AT Your Local Store With A Background Check
Private firearm sales (without background checks) are legal for long guns in 42 states and for handguns in 32 states—even using data from the Giffords law center. Representatives of Americans living in states with Universal Background Checks might imagine that their constituents are therefore unaffected by the ATF’s new rule. Unfortunately, the ATF’s new rule is so backwards and outrageous, constituents could go to jail even if they sell a firearm by going to a gun store where the local Federal Firearms Licensee run a background check.
Criteria for Needing a License Under ATF’s New Rule
ATF’s interpretation of who needs a gun dealer license has been greatly expanded by the new ATF rule. Outrageously, the rule even treats many gun owners as guilty until proven innocent. GOA has identified over a dozen situations where a gun owner might engage in completely lawful behavior and yet be presumed to have violated the law (and have illegally dealt in firearms without a license). For example, a gun owner is presumed to have violated the law if they make even a penny of a profit off of a firearm they bought and later sold. This is what can get you in trouble, even for a gun owner complying with a state’s unconstitutional Universal Background Check law.
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Indeed, ATF’s rule says that even an offer to engage in a transaction might be enough to violate the law. So a gun owner, who doesn’t understand ATF’s new rule, might offer to a friend “Hey, I don’t like the gun I bought last month; if you want, I can sell it to you at our local gun store with a background check” and end up in a federal prison for 5+ years.
Read the rest of the article: https://www.gunowners.org/new-atf-rule-you-can-go-to-jail-for-selling-a-gun-at-your-local-store-with-a-background-check/