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A few facts the young need to know & those of age need to remember that have been LONG forgotten.

When "Gun Shows" were born it was always for the locals who had NO Federal Firearms License.
Participants knew many of the other sellers & those that walked in were most often local too. VERY SMALL compared to today.

I well remember the lobbying of the FFL dealers (I remember many of us calling it whinning) to get the law changed from "in store only sales" so they could go to the gun shows for profit.
When the law was changed I remember the next & still sometimes complaint. "We have to charge & collect tax & cant compete. Private gun shows are taking sales away from businesses."

Did not matter that this was very seldom true. It is a RARE occasion w/ any product that used product sales take away from new product sales.

In the days of old when Lady Liberty still stood unembarrased by the king, those private citizens in general did not "buy guns to sell for profit at the next gun show" but went to sell something not used any more, trade something the son had outgrown for an upgrade, buy for the ones ready to start hunting/shooting......
Very rare for those transactions to yield $$$profit. True no private seller/trader can afford to loose substantial money like that.
I can assure everyone if it had not been for early gunshows as they were my son would have not had NEAR the arms he shot as a kid. No way for us to ever have afforded them new.
As a kid I was given my 1st rifle by my folks. After that I bought my own & remember WELL my 1st "new firearm purchase" It was when I was in college working for "Howards Discount" when they were going out of business. I bought a couple then at their clearance prices. I was well over 30.

Enter FFLs to the gunshow arena. Now BIG business. Tables furnished (that had previously been brought by the private sellers) & spot rent went way up forcing many private sellers to not be able to do it any more. (my oppinion-exactly what many FFLs wanted) Many places started charging for parking. Very few gunshows today are parking free.

Only after the big business of gun shows became well established did the still very few verifiable problems of illegal buys/sales start to take place.

Most certainly not for many folks today but for this old, very simple minded, RedNeck CountryBoy, I find a VERY GOOD argument for the problems at gun shows today being at the feet of the FFLs & not the private sellers.
Jerry W. Young
aka LT