This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Gun control is being debated again. After the latest mass shooting in Roseburg, Oregon, several Democrats in Congress renewed their push for legislation to tighten gun sale regulation and crack down on gun traffickers. Separately, the Democrat with the best shot at striking a bipartisan deal, Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), has also signaled interest in reviving his efforts. Hillary Clinton proposed reforms also: shoring up the background check system to cover gun transfers that now occur off the books, extending the time limits placed on background check investigations and barring domestic abusers from owning guns, among other things.
In a more rational Washington, these proposals would be on Congress's agenda. So would requiring gunmakers to install "smart" technology that would allow only authorized users to shoot. If your iPhone can require your thumbprint, so could your pistol. Reality hasn't changed, however: A GOP Congress isn't likely to approve any gun control bill any time soon.
Recognizing that, President Barack Obama has instructed his administration to "scrub" current law for ways to more effectively "keep guns out of the hands of criminals." Clinton offered one proposed executive action: Make clear that private gun sellers who peddle a "significant number of guns" must obtain federal firearms licenses, which would require them to run background checks on buyers and keep records that federal authorities could audit. This would not fully close the "gun-show loophole" or shut freewheeling Internet gun markets. But it could cut the number of unregulated private gun sales, which undermine the background check system, and there's a good argument that the president can do it without Congress's approval.
Federal law states that "any person engaged in the business of selling firearms" must have a license, and you're "engaged in the business" if you devote "time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms." The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives admitted in a 1999 report that, without further clarification, this language has served to "frustrate the prosecution of unlicensed dealers masquerading as collectors or hobbyists but who are really trafficking firearms to felons or other prohibited persons."
Clinton would clarify that the law does not condone unregulated de facto gun dealing, perhaps by setting guidelines on how many or what sort of gun sales one can make before qualifying as a dealer, or otherwise distinguishing between authentic hobbyists and gun purveyors.
The Post's Greg Sargent reports that the Obama administration has been considering this sort of move but hasn't figured out how to make it work — for example, how many guns can one sell before it becomes a "regular course of trade"? Yet that's no excuse not to try.
Clinton's administrative action would at best offer incremental improvement, and even that would be limited without giving ATF more resources for enforcement. But while working for broader change, the country shouldn't turn up its nose at incremental progress.