Dave Hardy has linked to this most excellent law review by Nicholas J. Johnson called “Imagining Gun Control in America. Understanding the Remainder Problem” that I think everyone should read. Here’s a sample, discussion how banning private sales won’t facilitate a solution to the “remainder” problem, the remainder being the guns that don’t get turned in in defiance of a confiscation order (which is to say, most of them):
Requiring private sales at gun shows to be routed through a dealer might lay the foundation for regulating secondary-market sales. But we know that sales by FFLs are only about half of all gun transfers, and sales at gun shows are only a fraction of those. With nearly half of gun transfers involving private trades out of the existing inventory, people who complain about the gun show loophole can really only be satisfied by a flat ban on private transfers―e.g., requiring all transfers go through an FFL, who will route the buyer through the NICS.
Competing impulses complicate projections about defiance of rules that would introduce the government as a filter between all private buyers and sellers. The defiance impulse that confounds registration and confiscation operates here for obvious reasons. Channeling secondary sales through a government filter brings no-paper guns back into the system. Indeed, this type of system would be one way to confront the remainder problem that otherwise impairs attempts at gun registration. If all secondary sales were required to go through FFLs and all FFL transactions were recorded, eventually, in theory, most guns would be registered. However, where registration and confiscation are background possibilities, the impulse to resist secondary sales restrictions will be similar to the impulse to resist registration and confiscation. The no-paper gun will continue to have premium value. People will pay extra for them and have powerful incentives to retain and acquire them in various ways. These incentives will fuel defiance of secondary sales restrictions.
That is absolutely spot on, and why these schemes will not serve their intended effect. Get this, gun control folks, we know your end game. We have no intention of playing along with your little scheme. My experience with the gun community here in Pennsylvania suggests that non-compliance for our ban on private transfers of pistols is exceedingly high; most people don’t even know about the restriction, and are shocked and outraged when informed the law actually makes them felons for selling a pistol to a friend or shooting buddy. A federal ban, especially in states where local authorities have no incentive or intention to enforce federal gun laws, is even more likely to be defied. The paper trails for the guns meant to be subject to these regulations won’t be worth the paper they aren’t printed on.