Post Fact Checker on Obama’s internet gun sales claim

Yesterday, in his emotional and tearful press conference, President Obama made the claim that; “The problem is some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules. A violent felon can buy the exact same weapon over the Internet with no background check, no questions asked.” Yeah, it’s an outright lie, as many of us who have made purchases of handguns and long guns from the internet can tell you. I’ve bought several guns from auction sites and from electronic store fronts on the internet and every time I went through the NICS background checks before I was allowed to take possession of my firearm.

Apparently, Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post‘s Fact Checker, was inundated with emails after the President made the statement. Kessler grudgingly gave the President two Pinocchios;

Administration officials say his point was that electronic commerce has made it easier for prohibited people such as felons to obtain firearms (or to hide such transactions from scrutiny behind the dark Web). Put in those terms, his statement is reasonable. Illegal markets often exploit new forms of commerce.

But many readers believed Obama was asserting the rules were different for the Internet — that it legally permitted violent felons to obtain guns.

We agree that Obama’s language is slippery and could be confusing to the average person who doesn’t know anything about FFLs and interstate requirements. There is nothing unique about the Internet; the laws governing private transactions and interstate sales are exactly the same. It’s the same as offering to sell a gun on a bulletin board, except the bulletin board is significantly larger. The Internet, and eletronic payment systems such as PayPal and Bitcoin, have certainly facilitated transactions that in the past would have been more difficult to arrange.

Obama erred in saying the rules are different for Internet sellers. They face the same rules as other sellers — rules that the administration now says it will enforce better.

If the both the seller and the buyer are criminals, the transfers of the ownership of illegal guns on the internet will continue as it did before the President’s little crying jag yesterday, just like those car trunk sales in dark alleys and parking lots will continue between people who don’t care about following the law. Yeah, I bought scary black guns on the internet and at gun shows, but as I said. I went through the NICS background checks as i would at a gun dealer’s check out counter.

The President lied and the Washington Post should have admitted that it was an outright attempt at deceiving the American public. Instead they pretty much called it a “little white lie” when indeed it was a “whopper”. The President’s language wasn’t “slippery”, it was a lie. Those tears were a lie, too.

Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists