GUN NUTS VS ANTI-GUN NUTS. In an otherwise unremarkable column, Bruce Bialosky makes one key error with respect to the 'gun show loophole', and that is this: the vast majority of sales at gun shows are by federally-licensed dealers, and they routinely (if perhaps not cheerfully) perform the requisite background checks at the show. You don't pass the check, you don't get the gun. Period.

If you're a private seller with one or two (or ten) weapons for sale, are you going to pay the fee required to set up a table at a show? Or are you going to offer them to a dealer (who will perform the background check) for consignment sale? If you're a criminal looking to buy an unregistered gun, would you pay the admission fee to seek out the 1 or 2 private sellers who may or may not have what you're looking for? (Remember that at the Fredricksburg gun show I attended last Saturday, I saw only one private sale -- and it was probably a consignment sale.) Or would you buy on the street from another crook?