The Biden administration moved Thursday to close the so-called "gun show loophole" for background checks, but Wyoming gun show organizers and firearms dealers said they don’t expect it to change anything.
“It’s a constant effort to keep throwing mud against the wall to see what’s going to stick,” Scott Tarbell told Cowboy State Daily.
He’s the organizer of the New Frontier Gun Show and Western Collectibles Show, set for August in Cheyenne this year.
Tarbell isn’t too concerned about his show in particular because it centers mostly on high-end collectable and antique firearms. But he is concerned that the Biden administration’s move could disrupt the gun industry overall while doing nothing to make Americans safer.
“I think it’s certainly going to wreak havoc in the gun industry, but I think there’s too much of a gray area, and I don’t think it will get anywhere,” he said.
The gun show loophole refers gun sales for profit between private parties, either at gun shows or other locations, that don’t require a federal firearms license (FFL) on the seller’s part or background checks for buyers.
Will It Really Affect Personal Sales?
The Biden administration reportedly planned Thursday to file a final rule with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), with the rule to take effect within 30 days.
The rule was issued under the 2022 bipartisan federal Safer Communities Act. It would require anybody who sells firearms for profit to have an FFL and all buyers to subject to background checks — including at guns shows, flea markets and the like.
Gun shows in Wyoming frequently involve a mix of licensed dealers that require background checks, and people buying, selling or trading their personal firearms — with no licenses or background checks required.
Scott Weber, owner of Gunrunner Firearms & Auctions in Cody, told Cowboy State Daily he’s not sure how the Biden administration’s rule would change existing regulations or stop people from using creative work-arounds to buy guns.
As he understands the Biden administration’s rule, it still would not apply to strictly personal gun sales between private parties and not intended to make a business profit. Nor would it apply to people passing their personal firearms collections down to heirs, Weber said.
Shady Work-Arounds
And even people who are trying to sell guns as a profitable business without a license will probably just get creative, Weber added.
“There will be a lot of dealing in the parking lot outside of the gun show and places like that, with cash,” he said.
Ryan Allen, owner of Frontier Arms & Supply in Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily that the ATF can already put pressure on unlicensed people who try to fudge the rules at gun shows and say they are just selling personal firearms, when clearly they’re trying to do it as a business.
“If you’re there, at every gun show, and you’ve got 20 Glocks you’ve got 20 ARs on your table, and you’re trying to say that’s your personal collection, the ATF is going to say, ‘No it’s not, you need to go get an FFL,’” he said.
Allen said he doesn’t think the Biden administration’s ruling will change anything in that regard.
“I don’t think it’s going anywhere, because the ATF will get slapped down for overreach,” he said.
Weber, who also has a firearms business in Ohio, says he frequently works with ATF agents and knows they sometimes run stings at gun shows for people trying to fudge the rules.
“They’ve got a whole script,” he said. “An agent might go to a gun show with an M1 Garand (vintage military rifle) and start asking around with a story, ‘My grandpa died and left me this rifle he brought back from World War II, and my wife doesn’t want any guns in the house, will you give me $300 for it?’
“And if a guy buys the Garand for $300 and then that guy turns around and puts it out on his table for $1,800, then away that guy goes in handcuffs, because that’s trafficking in firearms for a profit without a license,” Weber added.
Agents Too Busy Already
Weber said he thinks ATF agents will likely resent the Biden administration’s rule as an unenforceable mandate that will just create more work for them.
“They’re already stretched thinner than restaurant soup,” he said.
Weber, Allen and Tarbell said Thursday’s move is just more proof that Biden is anti-gun.
“Biden doesn’t like gun dealers. He thinks we’re merchants of death,” Weber said. “We’re not. We’re actually on the front lines of keeping guns out of the hands of people who should not have guns.”
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
