In states where person to person sales are legal, a seller requiring a background check either is ignorant of the law or just would like to know that the buyer will pass a background check. Not all that unreasonable if the buyer is completely unknown to the seller.
This statement would include the majority of private sales, and virtually all sales done at gun shows. I've watched at gun shows as gang-bangers directed a girl-friend or buddy (presumably without a record) to purchase a handgun. The background check is done, and the straw purchaser hands the gun to the gang-banger after the purchase is complete. This shows me that Background Checks do nothing to keep guns out of the wrong hands. They only create a data base of law abiding gun owners.
Same goes double for the scenario where a gun was stolen. It doesn't matter a bit whether the rightful owner of the gun went through a Background Check. The felon who stole the gun didn't, and the fact that the original sale complied with the law does nothing to keep it from being used in a crime by the person who now has it.
This line of logic could easily be extended to the act of selling a car or truck to someone who lived in Yemen or Syria just because they might use it to plow into a crowd of people.
For a deal to be blown over a background check and transfer fee, you must not want the gun bad enough. Besides, if the seller is insisting on the FFL transfer, then they should be willing to absorb the dealer transfer fee.
This depends a lot on the total value of the gun in question. Some FFL's want a ridiculous $40 to $50 or more to do a ten minute transfer. This could easily amount to half the value of a cheap .22 rifle or single shot shotgun that you might want to buy to leave out in the barn or garage. But the transfer fee I paid for the double rifle I just bought was a negligible part of the entire cost. A few years ago, I bought a very disassembled Lefever shotgun action and parts. Enough of the gun was missing that it would never be restored. I told the seller to just send me the internal parts, and to keep the frame because the additional $25.00 for a transfer did not make economic sense. Remember, when the GCA of 1968 was passed, an Antique pre-1899 gun was 69 years or older. Now the same Antique must be 118 years old, or older.
Prevention of more of this stupidity is yet another reason to join the NRA, and to not vote for anti-2nd Amendment Democrats.
