You've probably seen that Biden is about to have a final rule be published on the so-called "gun show loophole."

It isn't actually a loophole, and the rule does nothing to impact actual private-party sales of firearms which are legal under certain circumstances.

What it does do is stomp -- hard -- on people claiming to be private sellers who are actually in the business of buying and selling guns but have not registered to do so.

Let's me stipulate up front that I'm a staunch 2nd Amendment Supporter as written.  But I'm also a strict Constitutionalist and the Constitution clearly gives the Federal Government the right to regulate interstate commerce, and these situations quite-clearly are that.

So from a Constitutional point of view I have no quarrel with it.

What we do know is that criminals don't tend to go buy their firearms at a gun store.  They often engage someone who is foolish enough to trust them to make the purchase for them (which is seriously illegal and will get you a nice stay in the slammer if caught, and if the gun is used in a crime and recovered you will get caught), they steal them (obviously someone who intends to stick up a liquor store or otherwise commit a crime isn't squeamish about stealing things) or they purchase them "under the table" from someone who doesn't care about any of the above.  Most true private sellers of lawfully-owned firearms do care because while you generally can't be thrown in prison for selling someone a gun privately that you have no reason to suspect is prohibited or will do an illegal thing with it you still get to defend against the prosecution and related costs which is very likely to occur.  Who among us wants to pay a lawyer $10,000 because you sold someone an old $200 shotgun?

Someone who is running a "back door" business, on the other hand, knows they're breaking the law already and can be jailed for it.  They thus likely don't much care about what the buyer intends to do -- or who they are.  It's just basic logic when you get down to it and the prevalence of this issue has been the subject of some study -- such as here.

Let's separate this out from the tactics of agencies, because I know there will be people who want to go there.  Ruby Ridge, Waco and more (including recently) make clear that these folks don't give a crap about this thing called "Due Process"; they want "their man" and dead is just fine with them, along with anyone who happens to be there at the time -- including in more than one case sleeping children who obviously had nothing to do with the original issue.  This has to be stopped and our government won't do it, so if you want my view of it that comes back to what I've repeatedly said: Only when the cops FEAR the outcome of such will it change, and that means that any sort of "no-knock" raid has to result in the target of same adopting a "shoot them in the face instantly for as many of them as you can get" response because from the clear history over the last several decades you're dead the moment it begins and they have no intention of arresting you or allowing due process and any sort of trial, and the government has never thrown these jackasses in prison for doing it either, so the only wat to deter that crap for the NEXT GUY is to make sure as many of them go to Hell with you as you can and make sure their families cannot hold an open-casket funeral too so they are forced to wake up in a cold sweat at night thinking about whether being dead and their children having to deal with the back of their head being blown off is worth their big-ball hero-combat style bullshit -- which has ZERO legal defense.  Janet Reno should have been executed for that shit at Waco, never mind the Ruby Ridge in which Weaver, who survived it, got $3 million for the unlawful conduct of the agents.

What unlawful conduct?  Well, for one the warrant was fraudulent in that part of the justification was a claim that Weaver had fired on a police helicopter.  That was later proved to be a lie in that both the pilot and agents on the ground knew there had been no shots fired.  This sort of outrageously fraudulent and in fact felonious conduct by the government was never punished with prison sentences as is absolutely required when one commits perjury.  If you think this sort of falsehood has been stopped why would any government agent or agency cut that crap out when there is never criminal sanction laid on those who engage in it?

The facts are that except for active hostage situations or where someone is already shooting at others there is absolutely zero reason for these sorts of raids unless we are willing to permit law enforcement to execute people on a summary basis, and if we ARE then the same rules should apply for everyone else with them as the targets.  Even in the case of a so-called "drug investigation" where the concern is that the suspect might flush the evidence (that's hard to do with guns, obviously) its stupid because everyone leaves wherever they are to go do routine things from time to time and arresting someone when they do leave to go to work, the grocery store or wherever is both easy and preserves said evidence.

Nonetheless this specific change, which likely does comport both with Statute and clearly is Constitutional -- provided there actually are goods moving across state lines -- is not one I have a material issue with so long as we allow the Federal Government to regulate such commerce in the first place.

Now if you want to have that debate then let's have at it.  From my point of view the old Sears Catalog approach is the right one, and yes, when I was a boy you could literally order guns from the "Big Book" that came around at Thanksgiving for Christmastime as that was perfectly legal until the 1968 GCA.  But so long as that 1968 law stands and it was passed by Congress, and Congress clearly can regulate interstate commerce per the Constitution, there you are.