Las Vegas, NV –-(Ammoland.com)- There are a lot of articles in the anti-gun press about “bad” gun dealers that allow straw sales. As if honest firearms retailers are some kind of “bad apples”
A ‘straw purchase’ is a sale made to a stand-in buyer who intends to then give the gun to the real buyer who is prohibited by law from buying the firearm himself.
As a 30-year-plus retail firearms dealer, I have no doubt that this happens on occasion. The real question is how do we tell a clever straw buyer from real customers? Some details of the incident below are changed in order to protect our security measures but the relevant facts are true.
A few weeks back a couple came in to purchase a firearm. The male half asked to look at a few small carry-type handguns and then asked the female half to check out one in particular. He then expressed that that’s the one she should get. She presented her Driver’s License and began to fill out the 4473.
As the clerk wrote out the sales receipt, the male produced the money to pay for the gun. Unknown to the customers, the clerk pressed a button to alert me that a possible straw sale was taking place. The clerk explained to the couple the “Actual Buyer” rule that the woman had just checked on the form.
The male jumps in and explains he is buying his wife a firearm and she is the actual owner.
As I watched the discussion on my monitor, I immediately recognized the customer as a 20-year friend of mine, John Hambrick, now retired from the United States Secret Service. Of course I went out to the sales counter and approved the sale. The couple has dinner with my wife and me once a month or so. I’m quite confident he is not a prohibited person but is really just paying for the pistol for his wife who is the actual person getting the firearm. She is retired and he has a paying job, currently the Speaker of The Nevada Assembly, third in line to be the Governor.
Had they had gone to another shop, how is a dealer who doesn’t know them supposed to react?
Instructions from BATF describe this exact thing, one person tells the other what gun to buy and then provides the money for it. The dealer then runs the Brady check on the person doing the 4473 not the person choosing and paying for the firearm. That is a classic straw sale!
Many FFL dealers would have stopped this sale as meeting the criteria provided by BATF to detect a straw sale. If they don’t the penalties can be severe. I suspect that most actual straw buyers show the gun to their buyer on their cell phone and give the fake buyer the cash outside of the dealer’s view.
As dealers, we only stop sales to the really blatant straw purchasers and probably stop purchases by innocent citizens just as often.
Bob Irwin, The Gun Store, Las Vegas
About Bob Irwin
The writer is the owner of The Gun Store in Las Vegas and has a gun talk radio show “Fired Up with Bob Irwin”.
If the “Brady Bunch” are monitoring this forum, I just want them to know something personal from me. It was a happy day for me when Veg and Coon became worm food!
Over the last 50 years, I have been intentionally buying guns for my son, to whom I will give those guns when I no longer need them, but still inter vivos. So, I knowingly and intentionally buy the guns for ownership by a third party. Please note that I am an extremely slow person. I think that Sean’s interpretation would lead to ridiculous conclusions.
Also it is interesting to find out that the Brady Campaign is monitoring our conversations! I will be sure to couch everything that I write in the hypothetical from now on.
I agree with TEX. Everything else is just liberals putting up a smokescreen.
“Instructions from BATF describe this exact thing, one person tells the other what gun to buy and then provides the money for it. The dealer then runs the Brady check on the person doing the 4473 not the person choosing and paying for the firearm. That is a classic straw sale!” Except if the person who filled out the form is the one who will actually be the person who has possession of the gun. This is why people hate the ATF – to them darn near ANYTHING can be labelled a straw purchase with the right spin. I paid… Read more »
Sean The joint NSSF/ATF Don’t Lie for the Other Guy partnership campaign and its message was coauthored and approved by the ATF. So are you saying the ATF is “purposely” “misleading and inaccurate”. Please be specific, exactly what part of the Don’t Lie material is purposely misleading and inaccurate? I”m sure ATF would like to know. By the way, before you throw stones, you might want to know that your own organization has never criticized Don’t Lie, until today I guess. Former Mayor Bloomberg included participation in the program as a condition of settlement agreements reached with out of state… Read more »
It’s only a straw purchase if the person who ultimately ends up with the firearm is a prohibited person ! If you can legally own a firearm it makes no difference how its acquired. (Legally of course) !