“6 News spoke with the owner of a local outdoor shop” who approves of Biden administration rule to “close the gun show loophole,” Johnstown PA NBC affiliate WJAC-TV reported Saturday.
“Thomas Engle is the owner of Hunter’s Warehouse in Bellefonte, and he says he supports the change, saying it puts everyone ‘on equal footing,’” the report explains. “At gun shows, he says people could buy and sell without licenses and insurances. He says background checks do not equal registration.”
“Well, a lot of people say it’s an infringement of their rights and stuff, but the problem is, the public wants to feel safe,” Engle elaborated in the accompanying video. “They want to know that a gun owner that has that gun should have the gun and isn’t a restricted individual have that gun. If you just sell – all you care about is money and you just hand somebody a gun without running that background check, you take a lot of risk in who you hand that gun to.”
“First, there is no such ‘loophole,’” Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America explained Back in 2008’s “Gun Show ‘Loophole’ Fraud: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.”
“Existing gun laws apply just as much to gun shows as they do to any other place where guns are sold… people who are not engaged in the business of selling firearms, but who sell firearms from time to time (such as a man who sells a hunting rifle to his brother-in-law), are not required to obtain the federal license required of gun dealers or to call the FBI before completing the sale, Pratt quotes, citing attorney David V, Kopel and author Alan Korwin. “This is not a ‘gun show loophole;’ it is simply a reflection of the fact that the federal government does not require record-keeping by occasional firearms sellers who are not ‘engaged in the business.’”
Changing “engaged in the business’ changes that.
As for another bit of misinformation in the WJAC report, there is no license or insurance requirement to buy a gun in Pennsylvania.
As for Engel’s contentions, “feeling” safe is subjective and hardly something that can be imposed by government diktat, and presuming the power to do that — by adding prior restraints and permissions to a right where the only Constitutional imperative is “shall not be infringed” — can decidedly make some feel unsafe. As for wanting to know if someone with a gun “should” have it, those who shouldn’t tend to let people know. They also, per the Bureau of Justice Statistics and ATF’s “National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment,” don’t much bother going though background checks themselves. And as for the contention that “background checks do not equal registration,” not by themselves they don’t. But the records would be key to implementing that if and when Democrats ever get the votes to override a Firearms Owners/ Protection Act proscription against establishing such a system.
One would think a Federal Firearms Licensee would be in tune with gun owner reasons and sentiments for Second Amendment absolutism, especially one whose website advertises “we specialize in Paramilitary weapons, military weapons, pistols, etc.” And one would think he would be aware of and responsive to mounting criticism from gun owners angered by his public statements, evidenced by comments under the WJAC article, but especially, on his Facebook.*
You’d also think there would be an awareness of how this latest development is but another example of the government not knowing what it’s doing and responding to prohibitionist pressure when it comes to FFLs. This comment from attorney and author David T. Hardy just came in from an email discussion group I belong to, and is posted here with permission:
1968: Let’s encourage everyone to get an FFL, because FFLs have to keep records, etc. $10/yr fee, premises can be your back room, etc.
1990s: Vilonce Policy Center goes on crusade, there are more FFLs than filling stations, this is awful. Congress tightens requirements, majority of those with FFLs give them up.
Subsequent: people without FFLs are having “private sales” without record-keeping. A scandal!
I called Engle and identified myself, told him I wrote for AmmoLand Shooting Sports News, and asked if he would give me a for-publication quote to address gun owners upset by his media comments. He said he wasn’t aware of anyone being upset and I pointed him to Facebook. He asked my position, and I told him I was a Second Amendment absolutist. He got pretty excited or combative, I don’t know him to make that call, used “Bulls****” a few times, told me if I wanted something from him, I’d need to come down in person so he could find out who I was, and then started going through reasons why he was right. I let him know that I just wanted a quote, not a debate, that I would send him an email asking for his quote so that he could be assured I would do so completely and accurately, and that my email would have links to my work so he could check me out.
Here’s my first email:
As per our phone conversation I am following up on comments you made to the media regarding the new background check rule. As I indicated, some gun owners are quite upset, starting with posts to your Facebook.
I am writing an article for AmmoLand Shooting Sports News and am asking for a quote from you reacting to these criticisms – that way, you can be sure your words are not edited and presented exactly as you wrote them.
You can check me out with the links below.
At the end of the work day, not having heard from him, I sent a follow-up email:
I intend to submit a story this afternoon. If I don’t have a statement from you by publication time, I will include a notation at the end that you have been asked for comment and I will update the article with it if and when I receive it.
That promise stands. In the meantime, check out his responses on Facebook and they pretty much will tell you what he would have said to me. *
Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have said “We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” We’ve seen similar attitudes with trainers against permit less carry. It’s surprising that a gun store owner doesn’t grok that and realize any infringement ceded to the gun prohibitionists is one less obstacle they need to overcome on their way to the end game – unless he doesn’t think that’s the plan.
* Since submitting this report, Engle has deleted critical comments and his responses from his Hunter’s Warehouse Facebook page. I took a screenshot of some of the comments before he deleted them and posted it to my War on Guns Placeholder site, but with his comments deleted the only way we’ll hear his side of things is if he chooses to reply to my email or posts about it somewhere else.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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