Looks like a liberal talking head made his way into the Chantilly gun show. If the guy that ran that found him in there he would have been thrown out. lol
http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/24...t-the-gun-show
f you've never been to a gun show, you should go. It's worth it simply to get a look at one side of the national debate we're having on firearms, the Second Amendment, and public safety.
I went to a big show in Virginia recently (free admission if you joined the National Rifle Association). Spread out over three days at a sprawling exhibition hall near Dulles Airport, it was packed with buyers and sellers of all kinds of weaponry — from a few super-pricey Browning shotguns ($16,500-$19,000) to a .25-caliber Saturday Night Special for $115.
Gun shows are extraordinarily popular in the United States. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATFE) estimates that more than 5,000 are held annually across the country. Who goes to them? A recent Pew Research survey confirmed much of what you probably assume: Gun owners tend to be white, male, and Southern. And this being Virginia, that's pretty much all I encountered in the packed exhibition hall. Sure, there were blacks, Latinos, and women — but in small numbers. There were kids as well, tagging along with their dads as they perused the aisles of weaponry, knives, clothing, and other wares. And this being Loudoun County, the wealthiest county in America, a few men were well-dressed, corporate-looking types, probably dropping in after work on a Friday night.
A gun show is a vast marketplace for private transactions, many of which are not regulated by law. Supporters of gun rights applaud this, but gun control advocates criticize this so-called "gun-show loophole," which they say allows anyone to buy a gun without having to first pass a federal background check. Anecdotally, I found that most sellers were licensed dealers, but not all. AFTE estimates that between 25 and 50 percent are not.
But gun supporters go so far as to say the term "loophole" is misleading, because a private commercial transaction between two parties is just that — private — and that sellers aren't required to perform background checks if they sell their gun at their kitchen table to a neighbor or relative.
"If those kind of transactions aren't regulated, what's the use tightening regulations at guns shows?" a dealer who identified himself as Richard told me. "You ever heard of the Commerce Clause?"
The Commerce Clause, in case you're unfamiliar, is the part of the Constitution that says the federal government has the right to regulate commerce between states. But who can regulate commerce taking place within a state — say, Virginia? That's a matter of debate. Under the Commerce Clause, states can argue that regulating the sale of firearms within their own borders is their Constitutional right and none of the federal government's business. Gun control advocates see it differently, but for some reason I didn't run into any of them in the exhibition hall.
Most states exercise this right. In 33 states, private gun owners can sell their wares at guns shows — and buyers are not required to undergo background checks. That's why in a prior column, I mentioned Omar Samaha. The Virginia man, whose sister was murdered in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, went to a 2009 gun show on behalf of ABC News, and with $5,000, was able to buy 10 guns in an hour — no questions asked.
I asked Richard — who was wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of an AR-15 (the semi-automatic assault rifle used in the Sandy Hook attack) with the words "I got this for my wife" — how school shootings could be prevented. Needless to say, his answers didn't include banning assault weapons like the AR-15 or limiting the capacity of their magazines, but focusing on mental health. "Adam Lanza was a sicko," Richard said (No argument from me). "Laws need to be better enforced. The government isn't enforcing the laws it already has and now it wants more? No."
He mentioned one in particular: The failure of the government to prosecute people for lying on background forms when trying to buy a gun. He's right. In 2010, some 80,000 Americans were denied guns, according to the Justice Department, because they lied or provided inaccurate information about their criminal background check forms. But only 44 of those people were charged with a crime. Cracking down on these "lie and try" cheaters is one thing both gun supports and opponents actually agree on.
On most gun issues, though, even Sandy Hook has failed to move the needle much. The Pew survey, taken in mid-January, said 51 percent of Americans favor tougher gun control measures, with 45 percent opposing. Two years ago, 47 percent supported tougher measures. In fact, Pew says, long-term support for tougher measures is gradually falling: Five years ago, 58 percent supported tougher laws.
And really, that's what it felt like at the gun show: Same old, same old. Had I attended in 2001 or 2006 or 2009, I imagine it would have felt an awful lot like the event I found in 2013. Even after a horrific gun tragedy, America's gun culture is more or less the same.
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Originally Posted by tennmike
