What do you do if everything you stand for is a lie, and that gets found out?  Anti-gun organizations often just rename themselves, and declare they’re mainstream.  They appear reasonable, and use cheery language.  They choose one target – say, gun show loophole – and hint that fixing that one problem would by golly, fix America.  Trouble is, the gun show loophole is a gussied-up lie.  It doesn’t exist.  So just why would anti-gunners go after it so often?  Three reasons. 

I have to wonder if the people who hate guns have ever been around them.  It’s hard to picture them walking up and down aisles with every kind of gun imaginable.  I have to admit I mentally see them brandishing a cross to ward off the evil.  But then, a cross is probably the last thing an anti-gunner would have. 

The vast majority of gun owners I have known over the years have been God fearing and decidedly patriotic.  The kind of people who would revere crosses, not try to expunge them from public sight as many anti-gunners do.  And the kind of people that criminals and terrorists would stick out from, like proverbial sore thumbs.  And that brings up the first lie about gun shows.   

Anti-gunners claim that terrorists and criminals flock to gun shows to buy guns, because security is lax and there are no background checks on the weekends.  Wrong.  Way wrong. 

As anti-gunners well know but won’t tell you, federal, state and local laws don’t take the weekend off.  Federal Firearms Licensees must abide by all of them to keep their licenses.  And, apparently while anti-gunners weren’t looking, America has progressed to telephone access right there at the booth.  The same lines that run your credit card purchase, are used for NCIC background checks. 

If the main premise is a lie, what keeps bringing up gun show loophole so often?  Lie number two is caused by Granny.  Or, Sonny.  Or, Sis.  They’re the ‘unlicensed dealers’ anti-gunners disparage.  Family members who want to sell the guns they inherited or can no longer use, but who are not gun dealers.  Who do not plan to be in business. 

Americans as ordinary people are allowed to sell their property, person to person, without a Federal license.  And ordinary people exercising their Second Amendment rights directly, American to American, upsets gun control zealots even more than a business selling guns.  That’s the animus behind the gussying up of the second lie.

In the same way that we don’t require individuals to get a federal license to have an estate sale after a family member dies, or to get a state permit to hold a garage sale after spring cleaning, we do not require inordinate regulation for the disposal of personal property.  And that leads to the third lie. 

Despite outlandish percentages you might have seen, less than 2% of guns used by criminals come from gun shows.  (Source:  NRA ILA report of BJS and NIJ statistics)  If you were a terrorist or criminal, would you willingly enter a place where so many law-abiding, gun-savvy citizens were congregated? 

When examined, the lies of gun-hating zealots fall apart.  Guns provide a means of personal and family protection; sports and recreation; and long term value.  The styling and efficiency of guns is beauty in motion.  Rejecting them outright as instruments of evil, is like rejecting Botticelli paintings as vile and morally bankrupt. 

Gun control zealots don’t believe in the Second Amendment guaranteed to us by the Constitution.  They want every gun out of the hands of Americans.  They’ll use anything to try to achieve their goals incrementally, since they’ve been unsuccessful with a frontal assault.  The ‘gun show loophole’ doesn’t exist.  The next time you hear someone use that phrase, ask them if their name is Gussy. 

Jan Ireland