Problem is that you are all thinking of reasonable people doing sane and reasonable things in gun sales. Ask your dealer have they ever had a bad buyer or bad transfer? What if the transfer is declined by BATF? You can't make it into a straw man purchase. The stories they could tell you would make you think half their customers are morons. Then they get caught in the middle. How much crap would you put up with for 25-50 dollars? Not much I am betting.
Dealers just want a clear pathway to return a gun and get it off their books. They want a legit DL in case the gun later turns out to be stolen. The seller is on the hook for return shipping. My dealer logs the guns in, then has me fill out the form. He calls it in and only then do I get the gun. End of transaction one. If you want to return it that's transaction two. He does not charge me for the second but I rarely, almost never, send anything back and have bought a lot of guns. But how would you like to have some squirrel send every gun back. You have to repackage them. You have to setup shipping. You need to get a clean return FFL. So even if I don't like it I can see the need for FFL to FFL shipping.
