Private Party Sales

[General Disarray]

Thanks everyone. I'm trying to avoid rehashing the 101 different ways folks do their versions of private sales. I can't seem to find the statute that outlines the law regarding this. Is there one? Anyone got a link?

[Circuits]

There is no link to a law, because such a law doesn't exist. The state generally does not regulate private party sales of anything, be it guns or oranges or cars.

Specific prohibitions exist against a private party sale where the participants made initial contact at a gunshow (requires that a background check be performed through an FFL).

Specific prohibitions exist against possession, purchase by, or sale to a minor.

Your duty, under federal law, is to not knowingly transfer a firearm to a person who is a resident of a state other than your own, or who is a prohibited person. Colorado adds nothing to this legal burden, other than the specific prohibitions above.

[Irving]

Since people in adjacent states can purchase long guns from FFLs across state lines, can you privately sell/buy long gun from a person residing in a state that touches ours?

[rondog]

Since people in adjacent states can purchase long guns from FFLs across state lines, can you privately sell/buy long gun from a person residing in a state that touches ours?

Sure. If you're eating breakfast in a cafe in some other state and spot a bargain rifle or shotgun in the local Pennysaver, you can hurry right over and buy it up, then bring it home with you. Doesn't have to be an adjacent state either. But you CANNOT do this with handguns! You can go see it and buy it from Bubba, but legally it has to be shipped back home to your FFL and processed like any other handgun purchase done online, via auction, or from a private seller.

If you're brave enough to try smuggling a handgun home from another state and you make it home OK, then nobody will ever be the wiser. But if you get stopped for speeding or whatever and you get caught bringing a handgun home across state lines, it'll sure suck to be you.

Which brings up another question - I live in CO, but have a membership at a range in Kansas. Sometimes I get a chance to go shooting when I'm over there on business.

What if I want to take a couple of my handguns with me to that range for some plinking....will I be breaking the law by taking them across state lines? I'm NOT purchasing them, I already own them, but there's no way to prove that I own them since they're not REGISTERED to me or anything like that.

What sez ye? If I can legally take a handgun that I own in CO and go target shooting in another state, and then bring it back home, what's to say that a handgun I just bought in a FTF purchase in another state wasn't a gun that I already owned and just took with me for target shooting? Sure is a blurry grey line there........

[Irving]

That's what I was going to say. There will be no evidence of a gun in your car being from another state, UNLESS it is currently registered in that state. Like you said, heavy gray area. Personally, I don't think most of us would buy an out of state handgun from random bubba anyway.

[rondog]

Personally, I don't think most of us would buy an out of state handgun from random bubba anyway.

Hell, I would if it was one I wanted and for a good price! A private seller is a private seller to me, I don't care if he's a Coloradan or a Texan, or a Kansan, or an Okie. Just seems to me that if I bought a pistol from Ol' Bubba in Texas, for example, with no paper trail, what's to say that I didn't already own that pistol in CO, and just took it with me on my journey in case I got a chance to do some plinking? Or, in my case, to go shooting at a range I'm a member of in another state?

I'm certainly NOT advocating doing this as it's illegal as hell, I'm just asking how can it be proven? Or is it also illegal as hell to take a handgun across state lines on a business/camping/fishing/hunting trip?

I do know for a fact you can't go to a gun shop or other licensed gun dealer in another state and buy a handgun, then walk out the door with it. You can buy it, but it has to be shipped to an FFL where you live and then you have to do the 4473 there to pick it up. Been down that road before.

[Irving]

It'd be proven in court when Bubba turns out to be an ATF agent. That's why I was saying people wouldn't do it. It's not illegal to transport guns across state lines. Even with NFA stuff, you only have to send in a form to let them know you're going on vacation or something. You don't even have to report taking an AOW across state lines.