HB 1376 - Documentation of and limitations on Private Firearms sales

[Papa_Tiger]

https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/Hi ... ill=HB1376

Requires DPS to create a form for private sales of firearms. The form must be completed and submitted to DPS by anyone who is not an FFL within 30 days of a private sale. Violation is a class C misdemeanor.

Limits the number of private sales to 5 each year excluding after death and if the person receiving the firearm is a close relative. Violation is a class C misdemeanor.

[Soccerdad1995]

OK this is even worse than the other post about this bill (assuming its the same bill). It also would require a loosening of FFL requirements.

My HOA does not allow me to have a home based business. My understanding is that this would make it impossible for me to get a FFL license. So there would be no way for me to legally sell more than 5 firearms a year? Let's hope Texas isn't so far gone that this sort of crap flies here.

[Papa_Tiger]

They are different bills, just filed sequentially by the same author. Yes, they are both terrible as the essentially create gun registration for law abiding citizens.

[Soccerdad1995]

They are different bills, just filed sequentially by the same author. Yes, they are both terrible as the essentially create gun registration for law abiding citizens.

Gun registration is enough reason to oppose these bills. But this one also makes it impossible for many law abiding gun owners to sell more than 5 guns a year given the restrictions on qualifying for an FFL.

[The Annoyed Man]

They are different bills, just filed sequentially by the same author. Yes, they are both terrible as the essentially create gun registration for law abiding citizens.

Gun registration is enough reason to oppose these bills. But this one also makes it impossible for many law abiding gun owners to sell more than 5 guns a year given the restrictions on qualifying for an FFL.

Agreed that the bill is terrible. BUT ... there is simply a level of oppression in the law beyond which I will not comply. Between us, my son and I own something on the order of maybe 45-50 guns already....guns that are NOT accounted for in any currently existing registry, with the exception of a couple of SBRs. If I refused to comply and simply sold them off the books, there would be no way for compliance to be enforced. This bill would NOT even slow down an underground market in firearms, UNLESS, it was accompanied by mandatory registration of all NEW gun sales. Even then, there would be no way to enforce it for the millions of guns already circulating in private hands. Most of mine were purchased through FFLs, but not ALL of them. I could easily still be pretty well armed even if ATF went snooping through every 4773 I’ve ever filled out. if something like that ever happened, the very FIRST thing I would buy is a boat - even if I never put it in the water - just to lend plausibility to a boating accident claim.

Bills like this are an exercise in futility for the commies. I’m NOT suggesting that we should relax and not worry about their passage. We absolutely SHOULD fight them, but not just because they are about gun-control. We should ALSO fight them because they are: (A) bad law because of unenforcability; and (B) they’re just one more layer of irrelevant law in a sea of irrelevant law which tramples down liberty.