Quote (Goomshill @ Jul 29 2019 12:37pm)
that was a meme that almost made sense prior to the internet, but now that private gun transactions occur all the time between parties and gun shows are a far less common place for sales and far more likely to have background checks, its actually kind of backwards
It would be nice if we could have some kind of background check database for public sales that was easy enough to use to make it convenient for private sellers, but there's no way to force anyone to use it and the privacy concerns and data risks are absolutely insane.
afaik in almost any state you can ask a gunstore owner to run a background check and act as a meeting place for any hand to hand gun sales. many wont bother, but i personally would to make sure you're not selling to a psycho or something. generally (my grandpa had people ask all the time) you just tell them no ammo will be part of the sale and they'll likely sell at least a box on site when the sale happens.
the "gun show loophole" is indeed mostly a democratic talking point, and not reality.
the quagmire that needs solving is a 4th amendment abiding process for mental health professionals and police to work together in cases where shootings seem plausible. what burden of proof that would need to be met to do it in a constitutional way would be difficult to figure out, especially without notifying the potential shooter as that could be a trigger that now is the time to act.