FTF straw purchase question

[leatherman84]

If you arrange a ftf transfer of a long gun can the other recipient have his wife or someone else pick up the gun in his stead? Does the straw purchase law apply to private transfers? Thanks in advance.

[fingers80002]

If you arrange a ftf transfer of a long gun can the other recipient have his wife or someone else pick up the gun in his stead? Does the straw purchase law apply to private transfers? Thanks in advance.

If you agree to something like that, you are not a responsible gun owner.

[/dev/null]

IANAL - but knowing that a third party is involved.... well lets put it this way, IF something ever goes bad Im sure that any prosecutor can figure out how google cache works, and that fact that your asking about this in the context of straw purchase.... thats probably NOT going to bode well for you.

I woudlnt do it - others may have other comments, just keep in mind that firearms laws are serious. Screw up just once adn your going to loose your right to keep/bear/carry.... you might even get some complimentary time at the gray-bar-hotel as well.

Straw purchase is illegal. Keep yourself clean (and legal) and insist on the original buyer (and insist on seeing and recording ID ion a receipt).

[GRoPA]

I'm waaay to lazy to dig up the law on it but if you do a private transaction it is your responsibility to be sure that the person you are selling it to is not a prohibited person.

[bogey1]

i highly doubt there is a law on it,. if the original purchaser decided not to but at the last minute and bailed, but told his buddy if he wants it heres his chance to buy it, well? as long as the second buyer is legal i dont see anything wrong.

[Xringshooter]

The OP asked if someone else could pick up the gun for another person. If the first person backs out and his buddy wants it and is legal to purchase/own that is just a FTF transaction with a different person, what that person does with the gun afterwards isn't the sellers business (although if that happened at the last moment I would be suspicious and probably not go through with it). If guy #1 wants it but can't make it to the FTF and sends someone else, that would raise some questions for me. If he couldn't make it then I would set up another time to do it. If he really wanted it then he would agree to the different time. If he said anything else, again it would raise questions. Why doesn't HE want to do the FTF? Why does he need to send someone else?

And to answer your actual question, yes straw purchases can pertain to private transfers but in the capacity that you had reasonable belief that the purchaser was not the person who would be the guns' owner. This however would be hard for the authorities to prove as you don't have any control over what the purchaser does with the gun once they take possession.

[Philbert]

I'm waaay to lazy to dig up the law on it but if you do a private transaction it is your responsibility to be sure that the person you are selling it to is not a prohibited person.

How does a private seller go about doing that?

[leatherman84]

Thanks to all for the input. I wasn't going to anyways, but the situation did make me curious to the legalities of it. I hope others learned from this topic as I did.

[Frenchy]

I think i see what the OP is saying,
Let's say for example i want to buy my wife a 20G shotgun O/u and found one for sale, but in purchasing it said My wife will love this for her birthday...


Now he knows the gun is going to a third person, but the transaction is with me, I am a legit buyer, what I do with the gun once I purchased it is no longer his concern.

Pending what you buy... my wife and I have bought rifles where the seller knew it was for my son who is in Iraq. I have bought a pistol where the FFL knew it was actually for my wife. Mind, you, the seller in the pistol case also kows my wife bought a pistol there and could have easely put that pistol (revolver) on her purchase.

As for the long guns, the seller basically said to us (FFL) I am selling it to YOU, what happens to it after (gifting to your son) becomes your business.

Just to make perfectly clear I can not give directly to tyler a gun, but by Pennsylvania law, the purchase of one spouse belongs to both. This means that my Revolver that was given to Tyler was in fact given to him by his mother as I am his "Step" father and not a direct relation, but I can give to my wife and she in turn could give to Tyler.

For long guns, it has no bearing as you do not need to have any blood relation to do a face to face with out a FFL.

[GunLawyer001]

There's no such thing as a private straw purchase of a long gun. If you're not filling out forms, you aren't providing false information to an FFL, so there's no federal "straw man" crime that can apply. If you don't violate PA laws by providing a firearm to a prohibited person, or supply the weapons for a pending crime, then there's no crime in selling that shotgun FTF to the designee of the real buyer. Heck, there's no legal requirement that you even know the name of the buyer, which is a situation that plays out at flea markets and yard sales very commonly.

As a matter of self-protection and common decency, I won't sell a long gun to someone who strikes me as iffy. And any sale that I do make, I'll write down some info from their DL, in case the police show up at my door some day and ask why my shotgun was left at the scene of a crime.

But legally, you can't be prosecuted for selling a long gun to any adult who doesn't tell you that he's prohibited or that he's going to use it in a crime, unless you have reason to know that he's prohibited. Even if he tells you that he's going to turn around and sell it to his buddy, UNLESS he gives you a reason to suspect that his buddy is prohibited or will use it for a crime.