A short primer on buying and selling guns - part I
The discussion on this site (and others) has been suffering from a lack of accurate information on how people buy and sell guns and the laws and regulations that govern them when they do.
I suppose the first thing to recognize is that the laws and regulations are full of twists and turns that constitute a trap for the unwary, the trap being a felony conviction. A lot of this has to do with varying definitions in different state laws, vaguenesses or indefinitenesses in statutory language, and this makes for a really complicated mess. A lawyer in New Jersey specializing in gun cases - that's the vast majority of his busy, busy practice - once published a book called "New Jersey Gun Law". It was on the order of 2000 pages long.
Twists and turns in state law make for headaches. A simple .22 "long rifle" cartridge with a hollow point bullet - ideal for hunting squirrels with a .22 rifle - can be perfectly legal and sold across the counter (or even stocked on the shelves of your WalMart where you can help yourself) in one state and expose you to get you 3 years in prison in another. An empty pistol which is an accurate replica of an old-west-style sixshooter can be perfectly legal in Vermont and get you a felony conviction across the border in New York (if the trigger pull is too light for New York law). And so on.
So, let's get back to buying and selling.
Let's assume Buyer lives in State A and Seller lives in State B. Buyer wants to buy a long gun - a rifle or a shotgun - from Seller.
Let's assume, for the sake of ease, that States A and B both have no restrictions on sales beyond the federal laws.
Scenario 1.
If (1) Buyer is physically in State B and (2) can take delivery of the gun "in hand" from Seller, and (3) Seller does not hold an FFL - a Federal Firearms License - then (4) Buyer presents some ID to seller showing Buyer lives in A (where the rules do not go beyond the federal baseline) along with cash (or other mode of payment), Seller gives Buyer the gun, and that's that. Private sale.
The problem with this is that Seller leaves himself exposed to criminal liability of providing a gun to a person not entitled to have one (by reason of prior felony conviction, existing domestic violence restraining order, etc.) because Seller did not have a background check done. But, that's not necessarily a problem, particularly if Seller knows Buyer is not such a person.
Scenario 2.
Same players as above in #1, but Buyer is not physically present in B and wants Seller to ship him the