When the price of individualism is just too high

[OrwellwasRight]

70. It should not be left up to the states.

That is my whole point. There should be no loopholes. When X drives from VT to NH (or CA to AZ or WHATEVER) to buy a gun at a gun show and then drives it back to his or her state of residence, that is an interstate gun sale which may not be captured in the system due to loopholes. And if that sale takes place in the living room of a "private dealer" you have the private sale loophole, despite any interstate aspect, because the private seller won't have the ability or interest to do a background check and so won't ask you to say that you live in the next state over. And if you find the gun on craig's list or arm's list or any one of these sites that allow or even don't allow, but don't effectively police, classified ads for guns, the site isn't in fact going to be responsible for the fact that the VA guy with the gun drives to DC to make the delivery. And unless somebody knows that it is happening, also knows that whatever sale is about to take place is in fact illegal (and not just exploiting a loophole), knows who to report it to, and can give enough detail (place, time, people involved, etc.) to allow the authorities to locate and stop the sale, it is unlikely such sales can effectively be stopped.

Instead if there were a standard law, just as it applies to cars, that every single sale, no matter by a commercial party or private party or at a show, had to be registered and a background check performed, and every buyer had to be licensed, and to have that license renewed every few years (just like a driver's license) to make sure the person could still handle a gun safely and was not batshit crazy, we'd be a lot better off because people would not have to guess if gun sale A required a background check while gun sale B did not, or if sale C needed to be registered, or if you could cross the state line to get your unregistered gun D.

They all would require a background check, registration, and a license, greatly simplifying matters for buyers, sellers, law enforcement, potential "witnesses" to illegal sales, etc.

Those are my thoughts on the matter.