Dem-ordered study to expose illegal online gun sales backfires

...and you can bet that those that ordered the study won't say a word about it now - particularly when the results weren't what they expected....

So how much money did thes 3 morons waste?

I am only surprised they didn't salt the results by setting up illegal buys to skew the results the way they wanted. The article said that in a 2 and 1/2 year investigation they attempted to do 72 illegal buys. I didn't think federal employees had to work that hard.

So, the BATFE's assertion that:

“...anonymity of the internet makes it an ideal means for prohibited individuals to obtain illegal firearms.”, and

Bloomberg's claim that:

"...62 percent of private sellers were willing to proceed with a sale, even if the prospective purchaser could not pass a background check."

aren't likely accurate?


Absolutely shocking!! (Unless you live in the real world of law-abiding gun owners).

$4 million in tax payers money wasted on this.

My guess is that the three of them set this up after sampling California's latest crop of marijuana.

I'll admit the article brought a smile to my face.

And I’ll admit that I’m tired of these worthless studies. We pretty much all assume that big brother is watching what we do on the internet. And gun sales should be something we KNOW they are watching.

I could do this study by myself in 3 weeks on my phone. Type the results. And have it handed in in a month. And it damn sure wouldn’t cost $4,000,000. That’s $55,555.56 per transaction attempt.

To sum this up, these clowns spent two and half years and a cool $4M to purchase two guns that have had their serial numbers destroyed, rendering them illegal by definition, from sellers who almost certainly have already lost their right to possess a firearm in the first place?

I'm speechless. Not that the sample size had been anywhere near sufficient to draw any conclusions had they succeeded, but to add insult to injury, they failed.

Seems to me like they could have just bought $4,000,000 worth of guns and had them destroyed. Would have been money better spent for their cause.

No kidding. Idiot politicians that literally have no idea what life is actually like in thier own country. The amount of money wasted on ‘studies’ like this is mind boggling.

There was a post on this site a few months ago by a guy who backed out of selling a gun to someone who sounds exactly like this story described.

Details were something like the purchaser lived out of state, but was soon moving into the seller's state, and he wanted the seller to sell the gun to his sister (wife / girlfriend / ??) instead so that she could hold it for him until he moved.

Anyway the deal just didn't seem right. Besides being technically illegal (a crime in fact), the seller didn't feel right about it and just dropped the whole idea.

He wrote about it here. I think I replied, but can't find that post. Perhaps someone recalls what I'm talking about. I don't recall the exact details. Anyway, it sounds like it might have been an example of this very attempt.

This is the kind of government control attempts that the 2nd Amendment (and all Amendments) was established to protect us from - politicians are people with power and power corrupts (some) people. The Framers were very tuned to human nature; no kings and queens for us.

oddly enough, we've got a for-sale board for all the folks who work on the base I'm at. People do sell guns, and I've sold a shotgun via a private sale to a local guy with no issues. Recently, I put an SP101 up on the board and got 3 interested replies.....the first was out of state and I had to tell him we'd have to transfer via an FFL and the cost would be higher than if he bought one off gunbroker. He pressed a bit, but finally backed down. The second guy said he was a NC resident (so far so good), but that his pistol permits were all used up. He then told me his wife still had a few left on hers. He went so far as to suggest there was most certainly some way we could work something out. On that one, I had to tell him no as well since he wanted to purchase it, but via his wife's permit. All of this occurred over a number of phone calls.

Anyhow, that got me thinking that more than likely it was my branch of service's investigative folks (who happen to have an office on base) trying to get me. I ended up keeping the gun. I got one more offer from a guy in my office, but by then I was over the hassle. Not difficult to look up the laws (Which I did for both cases), but still pretty sneaky on their part.

Those idiots probably should have been censured by the house and senate.

That's about the stupidest thing I've read so far this year.

I think Warren has lost her freakin mind. The other two are just stupid.

There is no reasoning with delusional minds.

luzyfuerza said:

Bloomberg's claim that:


"...62 percent of private sellers were willing to proceed with a sale, even if the prospective purchaser could not pass a background check."

aren't likely accurate?

Click to expand...

At best, it was probably a case of conflating/asserting that not wanting to go through an FFL meant not being able to pass a BGC.

I know plenty of folks who are 100% legal to purchase and possess but prefer private sales because they (correctly) don't believe that the transaction records are destroyed with 24 hours as required by law.

It's a demonstrable fact that requiring background checks does nothing to prevent criminals and prohibited persons from acquiring firearms. We also knew already what this "study" revealed; that the extreme majority of gun owners will make every attempt to stay within the law, including private party transfers.

The one that I'll never understand is the liberal disconnect that causes them to believe laws prevent crime. The fact that laws define crime and punishment deters it, but that there is nothing you can do legislatively that will prevent just doesn't resonate with them. A person can break 47 laws in one fell swoop, but the left espouses that just one more would have stopped the criminal

This report should be forwarded to any media outlet and politician when they say or print the words "internet loophole".

If it doesn't fit the narrative it'll never be heard of.
This will get the same media coverage as the Obama sanctioned CDC gun violence study.
Oh yeah......none

I feel like you are all missing a valuable point here


The only person who is afraid of research is the person who has something to hide. As law-abiding gun owners, the facts will reinforce our narrative - when our narrative is challenged, we need some way of providing facts. Facts are useful in our debate - we can use them to beat back the anti-gunners. The 2A will ALWAYS be under fire, and will always need defense - impassioned arguments are worthless, research is gold. The more research that is done, the better. Even if it is an unexpected outcome of a Democrat anti-gun study, it is still valuable. To many anti-gun people, the narrative is controlled by the law BREAKERS - so many toddlers shooting toddlers, people shooting people, mass gunners gunning people...you name it. How do we fight that? With facts. If they need more facts to see what we already see (anecdotes), let them.

This is a prime example of that particular party's mindset that gun owners are all bad people, and that citizens in general can't be trusted to govern themselves.

v35 said:

There was a post on this site a few months ago by a guy who backed out of selling a gun to someone who sounds exactly like this story described.

Details were something like the purchaser lived out of state, but was soon moving into the seller's state, and he wanted the seller to sell the gun to his sister (wife / girlfriend / ??) instead so that she could hold it for him until he moved.

Anyway the deal just didn't seem right. Besides being technically illegal (a crime in fact), the seller didn't feel right about it and just dropped the whole idea.

He wrote about it here. I think I replied, but can't find that post. Perhaps someone recalls what I'm talking about. I don't recall the exact details. Anyway, it sounds like it might have been an example of this very attempt.

Click to expand...

I think you're referring to thus thread.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/is-this-a-straw-purchase.825551/#post-10628341