Active Shooter in Las Vegas Attacks Country Music Festival with Automatic Weapon

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**Vaktathi**

d-usa wrote:How many guns can I buy/sell as a private person before I become a dealer?

As noted, there is no limit, rather the intent matters. If you buy and sell 200 guns in a year out of a personal collection, thats fine, if you're doing it as part of a collection. If you're actively looking to make money on those, and derive a profit, thats when you need an FFL.

nfe wrote:The assumption that US civilians would be a more effective opposition to the US military than the insurgencies that have been fighting it and its allies overseas is disappointingly hubristic.

Given that the US has a lot more room for groups to hide and move in, far more weapons and ammunition on hand than just about anywhere else on earth, both in an absolute and per capita sense, a much more technologically integrate population, a diverse population that wont automatically make an outsider stick out, and a lot more on hand wealth to devote to such an endeavor, I would not think so.

**d-usa**

So if I sell a single gun to make money, because I’m broke, I’m a dealer and need a license?

**cuda1179**

No, that's not how it works. If you buy guns with the intent on selling them for profit, then that's a vender.

**Gordon Shumway**

So if I just inherited a lot of guns and am looking to sell them off to profit, that's cool? (A couple I would keep for sentimental or historical reasons)

**Vaktathi**

d-usa wrote:
So if I sell a single gun to make money, because I’m broke, I’m a dealer and need a license?

no, because you're liquidating a collection, which is specifically exempted. If you buy a rifle specifically to turn around and flip 6 months later at a higher price (after whatever new panic buying fad hits peak), then you'd need an FFL.

**daedalus**

More importantly, is the FFL required for you to call yourself an arms dealer and wear the cool sunglasses?

**Kanluwen**

Vaktathi wrote:
d-usa wrote:
So if I sell a single gun to make money, because I’m broke, I’m a dealer and need a license?
no, because you're liquidating a collection, which is specifically exempted. If you buy a rifle specifically to turn around and flip 6 months later at a higher price (after whatever new panic buying fad hits peak), then you'd need an FFL.

What if you buy a rifle and then six months later when panic buying fads set in again, you decide you want to sell it?

D-usa's making a valid point which is in and of itself a wonderful example of the nonsense that gets spouted out. There's nothing preventing someone from just saying that they're liquidating a collection or "moving up to a new gun" or whatever to simply make some money.

It's one thing for businesses to be regulated like that where a storefront or a building is involved, it's another thing entirely to pretend that Craigslist or Facebook or other social media sites that have the ability for people to post up ads don't exist.

**d-usa**

I find a good deal on a used gun in rough shape, pay $100 for it. I clean it up, adjust the trigger, change out the sights, now it’s a nice gun. Next year I’m rough up for money and I sell it to a guy at work. Because it doesn’t look like crap anymore I sell it for $250 bucks. I made $150 on this gun and used that money as income to pay my electric bill.

I bought and sold, turned the gun around, and more than doubled my money. All things listed in this thread as a standard for requiring a FFL.

**LordofHats**

daedalus wrote:
More importantly, is the FFL required for you to call yourself an arms dealer and wear the cool sunglasses?

No. You just need a stupid younger brother, an even stupider Ukrainian uncle, and an acting career scrapping the bottom of the barrel

**d-usa**

LordofHats wrote:
daedalus wrote:
More importantly, is the FFL required for you to call yourself an arms dealer and wear the cool sunglasses?

No. You just need a stupid younger brother, an even stupider Ukrainian uncle, and an actor career scrapping the bottom of the barrel

If you don’t have a FFL you can deal in cannons and have a guy you can call who knows about this stuff, because you never know what might come walking through that door.

**daedalus**

LordofHats wrote:
[
No. You just need a stupid younger brother, an even stupider Ukrainian uncle, and an acting career scrapping the bottom of the barrel

Oh man, now if only I could grow out my Travolta hair.

**cuda1179**

d-usa wrote:
I find a good deal on a used gun in rough shape, pay $100 for it. I clean it up, adjust the trigger, change out the sights, now it’s a nice gun. Next year I’m rough up for money and I sell it to a guy at work. Because it doesn’t look like crap anymore I sell it for $250 bucks. I made $150 on this gun and used that money as income to pay my electric bill.

I bought and sold, turned the gun around, and more than doubled my money. All things listed in this thread as a standard for requiring a FFL.

In this case, no. You would not need an FFL. You didn't buy the gun with the intent of reselling it. The profit you made is irrelevant. Heck, you could buy a gun for the intent of selling it and take a LOSS and it be illegal. Buy a gun for giggles, find out it's rare, and make $1 million profit, A-Okay.

**Vaktathi**

d-usa wrote:
I find a good deal on a used gun in rough shape, pay $100 for it. I clean it up, adjust the trigger, change out the sights, now it’s a nice gun. Next year I’m rough up for money and I sell it to a guy at work. Because it doesn’t look like crap anymore I sell it for $250 bucks. I made $150 on this gun and used that money as income to pay my electric bill.

I bought and sold, turned the gun around, and more than doubled my money. All things listed in this thread as a standard for requiring a FFL.

As with so many things in law, particularly with the ATF, intent it what matters. If you bought that gun for $100 because it was neat, and you did all the stuff to it because you thought it would enhance your enjoyment of the gun, then selling it when you need cash isn't an issue, again, you're liquidating a collection. If you bought that gun specifically to enhance and resell for a profit, and made all those modifications to specifically increase its resale value, then yeah, you'd need an FFL.

The same end results may be illegal or legal based not on their own merits but on the intents that drove the actions to that result. Intent makes all the difference in the world with the ATF.

As Cuda said, you can end up taking a loss on a sale and it be illegal without an FFL, or make a million bucks and it be perfectly legal to not need an FFL. Intent is everything.

**d-usa**

I intend to collect 1911s this month, next month I’m not a fan of them anymore and I now intent to collect Glocks. I’m liquidating all my 1911s and happen to make a profit. I can buy more Glocks. I will probably liquidate that collection the month after that and make a profit again but I intend to collect AR-15 clones that month. I don’t intent to buy and sell for profit, I’m just very eclectic and have changing tastes. Just collecting things over here, it’s not my fault that changing my collect constantly makes a profit. That’s not my intent. That’s why I’m always at gun shows, increasing and liquidating my collection.

**cuda1179**

That kind of thing would likely get you in trouble, regardless of whether or not it was technically legal. It would look like you were doing it for profit, and would likely result in a trial. Prove that you are an eclectic collector of weird stuff, and it might fly, depending on if you can convince a jury.

**Prestor Jon**

Vaktathi wrote:
d-usa wrote:
I find a good deal on a used gun in rough shape, pay $100 for it. I clean it up, adjust the trigger, change out the sights, now it’s a nice gun. Next year I’m rough up for money and I sell it to a guy at work. Because it doesn’t look like crap anymore I sell it for $250 bucks. I made $150 on this gun and used that money as income to pay my electric bill.

I bought and sold, turned the gun around, and more than doubled my money. All things listed in this thread as a standard for requiring a FFL.
As with so many things in law, particularly with the ATF, intent it what matters. If you bought that gun for $100 because it was neat, and you did all the stuff to it because you thought it would enhance your enjoyment of the gun, then selling it when you need cash isn't an issue, again, you're liquidating a collection. If you bought that gun specifically to enhance and resell for a profit, and made all those modifications to specifically increase its resale value, then yeah, you'd need an FFL.

The same end results may be illegal or legal based not on their own merits but on the intents that drove the actions to that result. Intent makes all the difference in the world with the ATF.

As Cuda said, you can end up taking a loss on a sale and it be illegal without an FFL, or make a million bucks and it be perfectly legal to not need an FFL. Intent is everything.

Yup and if we're going spend pages discussing FFL questions then we should defer to the ATF since their opinion is the one that counts.
https://www.atf.gov/file/100871/download

**d-usa**

And this highlights the issue with who is a dealer/collector/hobby gun owner, who might all sell st gun shows, but only some are required to do background checks.

And that’s what people usually talk about when they mention the “gun show loophole”. It’s not that gun shows are doing something that is against the law, but that there is a feeling that it can be a nebulous “I know who is a dealer when I see one” standard that determines who needs a FFL, and we have showsln that even in this thread it’s pretty hard to nail down where collectors and private sellers end and where dealers begin. It’s not that they are not doing checks when they should, but that that are not required to do checks when people feel they should be.

Gun Shows, like Art Shows and Antique Shows and Flea Markets feel like a business, and the distinction between private seller or corporate business owner seems arbitrary and/or irrelevant when you are at a commercial event that feels like a big store. I admit it’s as much a “I know a store when I see one” as the “I know a dealer when I see one” examples I gave.

But gun shows as a whole would be a place I am okay with requiring background checks for every person selling there, FFL or private. I don’t think you need to require that private sellers run the checks. But I would be fine with requiring that event organizers conduct background checks for all weapons sold at their event. They are making a profit from the gun sales in the form of booth fees, they organized the event for the purpose of selling guns at the event, so I don’t see an issue with having them be tasked with conducting the checks. The private seller can fill out the form, they can turn it into the event organizer to run the check, and then finish the transaction if the check comes back clear.

Don’t make it a burden for a private seller, make it the responsibility of the person making a profit from the gun show.

**Prestor Jon**

d-usa wrote:
The issue with the gun show loophole is that the two sides view it completely different. The simple fact is this:

I can have two buildings here in Oklahoma City: the big gun store right on I-40, and the building at the fairgrounds not 5 miles from that store. I can walk into both buildings, browse through hundreds of guns and rifles, and buy as many weapons as I want. All the weapons in one building are sold by one person, and all the weapons in the other building are sold by fifty different people. One building has background checks, the other building does not.

One side will argue that there is no gun show loophole, and that private sellers should always be treated as private sellers, even if they come together collectively to create a virtual one-stop store. The other side argues that creating a virtual store should require the same treatment as a real store and that letting private sellers sell collectively is a loophole to avoid the same treatment a single large store would have to follow to sell the same collection of weapons.

And that’s what it boils down to, should a collective of private sellers be classified as private sellers or should they be classified as a collective store.

Personally, I have no problems with regulations that would require background checks for all sales at gun shows. Every art show I have been to manages to have individual artists selling stuff, and the event handles all the payments. You pick what you want, the artist gives you the bill, you pay it at the event office, you go back and pick up your art. There is no reason why gun shows can’t do that. Heck, you can even do that without passing any laws requiring private sellers to conduct background checks. Pass a law that requires organizers of events where private sellers can come together to provide background checks for any weapons sold at their events. No burden for the individual sellers, but a burden for the person organizing the event.

Related question to the gun show issue: is there a limit to how many weapons someone can buy and sell before they become a dealer instead of a collector? And during gun shows in states with waiting lists, does the list apply to gun shows?

The issue is that the requirements for background checks etc aren't tied to the act of selling a firearm they are tied to maintaining a federal firearms license. If you have a FFL you must comply with the federal laws that come with it and if you don't have an FFL then you don't have to comply with federal requirements for FFLs. The federal govt can't regulate private intrastate commercial transactions so if you want to require background checks from private sellers you need to tackle it at the state level.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

d-usa wrote:
And this highlights the issue with who is a dealer/collector/hobby gun owner, who might all sell st gun shows, but only some are required to do background checks.

And that’s what people usually talk about when they mention the “gun show loophole”. It’s not that gun shows are doing something that is against the law, but that there is a feeling that it can be a nebulous “I know who is a dealer when I see one” standard that determines who needs a FFL, and we have showsln that even in this thread it’s pretty hard to nail down where collectors and private sellers end and where dealers begin. It’s not that they are not doing checks when they should, but that that are not required to do checks when people feel they should be.

Gun Shows, like Art Shows and Antique Shows and Flea Markets feel like a business, and the distinction between private seller or corporate business owner seems arbitrary and/or irrelevant when you are at a commercial event that feels like a big store. I admit it’s as much a “I know a store when I see one” as the “I know a dealer when I see one” examples I gave.

But gun shows as a whole would be a place I am okay with requiring background checks for every person selling there, FFL or private. I don’t think you need to require that private sellers run the checks. But I would be fine with requiring that event organizers conduct background checks for all weapons sold at their event. They are making a profit from the gun sales in the form of booth fees, they organized the event for the purpose of selling guns at the event, so I don’t see an issue with having them be tasked with conducting the checks. The private seller can fill out the form, they can turn it into the event organizer to run the check, and then finish the transaction if the check comes back clear.

Don’t make it a burden for a private seller, make it the responsibility of the person making a profit from the gun show.

If the ATF concluded that gun show organizers were running shows with the intent of profiting from gun sales and therefore needed an FFL in order to run a gun show I wouldn't have a problem with it. Without making the organizers obtain an FFL they won't be required to run checks.

**Ouze**

Nostromodamus wrote:
They can try to ban the product, of course, but as others have pointed out you can bump fire a semi auto without one anyway.

You can bump fire without an aftermarket stock, but it's nearly impossible to do so with any sort of actual aiming, other than "thataway, kinda". The slidefire/bumpfire stocks allow you to make it a lot more aim-able, depending on how strong and practiced you are.

So far as banning the product is should be pretty easily done because there are only like, two vendors that make them.

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
Nostromodamus wrote:
They can try to ban the product, of course, but as others have pointed out you can bump fire a semi auto without one anyway.

You can bump fire without an aftermarket stock, but it's nearly impossible to do so with any sort of actual aiming, other than "thataway, kinda". The slidefire/bumpfire stocks allow you to make it a lot more aim-able, depending on how strong and practiced you are.

So far as banning the product is should be pretty easily done because there are only like, two vendors that make them.

If anything, just add it to the NFA items (while deregulate the supressors).

**daedalus**

I recall that my grandfather had a rifle that had a trigger type mechanism that sat in front of your finger, opposite the actual trigger. Never knew the name of it, but I presume that's something of the same sort?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as I don't think anyone's posted it, though we've talked about it, here's a politifact article talking about the silencer business: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/04/hillary-clinton/no-gun-silencers-wouldnt-have-worsened-las-vegas-s/

Politifact, I believe, is frequently accused of being mildly left of the dial by some.

**d-usa**

Prestor Jon wrote:

If the ATF concluded that gun show organizers were running shows with the intent of profiting from gun sales and therefore needed an FFL in order to run a gun show I wouldn't have a problem with it. Without making the organizers obtain an FFL they won't be required to run checks.

The sticky issue would probably be that while organizers are profiting from the fact that guns are being sold at the event, they are not profiting from the actual guns sales conducted at the event. The argument would likely boil down to “booth fees” vs “getting a cut of each sale”.

I think this has been the most civil approach towards talking about the gun show “loophole” we’ve managed to have here though.

**Prestor Jon**

d-usa wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:

If the ATF concluded that gun show organizers were running shows with the intent of profiting from gun sales and therefore needed an FFL in order to run a gun show I wouldn't have a problem with it. Without making the organizers obtain an FFL they won't be required to run checks.

The sticky issue would probably be that while organizers are profiting from the fact that guns are being sold at the event, they are not profiting from the actual guns sales conducted at the event. The argument would likely boil down to “booth fees” vs “getting a cut of each sale”.

I think this has been the most civil approach towards talking about the gun show “loophole” we’ve managed to have here though.

I think it would have to be approached from the angle you've laid out. Gun shows are de facto storefronts, booths are rented with the intent to use them to facilitate gun sales because gun shows are events that are designed to facilitate gun shows. All of the profits earned are derived from gun sales either directly or indirectly but the intent of the event is clear and it is overtly advertised. Gun shows are intended to be essentially pop up gun stores so it makes sense to require organizers to have an FFL.

Private sellers can still try to make sales through their own efforts, if you decide to sell a shotgun because you're giving up duck hunting you still don't need an FFL but if you bring it to a gun show then the organizer needs to run a background check on the purchaser.

Even if such a law or ATF ruling was put in place I still think making NICS accessible to the public is a really goood idea. I don't think there's a compelling reason for the DoJ to prevent any individual selling a firearm from accessing NICS.

**amanita**

Wow...I just learned that the perpetrator in the Las Vegas shooting also targeted huge jet fuel storage tanks in range of the hotel.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/the-strip/las-vegas-strip-shooter-targeted-aviation-fuel-tanks-source-says/

**sebster**

Frazzled wrote:
Anti gunners are always terrified at the prospect of following the established procedures to amend the Constitution.

And pro-gunners remain in denial that the 2nd amendment has been interpreted differently in the past, and has every chance of being interpreted differently in the future.

**Ouze**

As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

amanita wrote:
Wow...I just learned that the perpetrator in the Las Vegas shooting also targeted huge jet fuel storage tanks in range of the hotel.

I think shooting fuel tanks to cause an explosion only works in the movies.

**d-usa**

Ouze wrote:
As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

amanita wrote:
Wow...I just learned that the perpetrator in the Las Vegas shooting also targeted huge jet fuel storage tanks in range of the hotel.

I think shooting fuel tanks to cause an explosion only works in the movies.

What about shooting to cause a leak and hitting the leaking fuel with tracer rounds afterwards?

I think mythbusters tackles a variation of shooting gas tanks I think.

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:
As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.

Where you getting this? Thats... deeply disturbing...

Automatically Appended Next Post:

amanita wrote:
Wow...I just learned that the perpetrator in the Las Vegas shooting also targeted huge jet fuel storage tanks in range of the hotel.

I think shooting fuel tanks to cause an explosion only works in the movies.

It takes intense heat to ignite fuel tanks like that... or, influx of oxygen. (or both). Simply pew pewing the containers generally isn't enough.

**Ouze**

He allegedly had at least one AR10 so should have had no problem making reliable hits with tracers. No clue why he didn't.

**whembly**

d-usa wrote:
Ouze wrote:
As an update, police are operating under the assumption he had help, and that he had an escape plan. No elaboration on the latter in the article.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

amanita wrote:
Wow...I just learned that the perpetrator in the Las Vegas shooting also targeted huge jet fuel storage tanks in range of the hotel.

I think shooting fuel tanks to cause an explosion only works in the movies.

What about shooting to cause a leak and hitting the leaking fuel with tracer rounds afterwards?

I think mythbusters tackles a variation of shooting gas tanks I think.

Yup... I remember that episode... THAT worked.