Common sense and a strong sense of ethics should be the determining factors, but sadly they are not.
Muss Muggins did a good job of covering the “knowingly” part, and I’d correct, at least from a legal perspective that legality aside if you follow that “Rely on the prohibited person to disclose that he or she is prohibited” approach and sell to a prohibited individual more than once you will probably become a person of interest to local or federal law enforcement.
However, while it is legal, it’s not ethical.
That statement is where I normally make people angry as:
- way too many Americans today mistake and confuse something being “legal” as meaning it is also “ethical”; and or
- they incorrectly believe that if something is a “right” it is completely untethered from any ethical responsibility for how they wield that right.
For example, I still encounter the long range hunter (often sniper wannabes) who do unethical things like attempt to shoot a deer or even elk at ranges out about 1000 yards with their mighty 6.5 Creedmoor. They will cite that it is legal, and therefore “ethical”, and in the process display a profound misunderstanding of both ethics and personal responsibility.
Ethics is a bit more than adherence to the law. An ethical Hunter understands some basic limits, like:
- the half second rule, where it’s understood that at ranges where the time of flight is greater than 1/2 second (about 400 yards for most high velocity smokeless powder era rounds) a game animal that spots the muzzle flash and spooks has time to take a step forward and turn a well placed, anchoring and quick killing shot in the vitals into a shot in the paunch that won’t anchor the animal within a 100 yards or so and will instead take days to kill it; and
- the e threshold and range limitations for the bullet they are using (often also in the 400-500 yard range, rarely more than about 600 yards for a bullet with an 1800 fps threshold and rarely more than 700-800 for a bullet with a 1600 fps threshold); and of course
- the tendency for shooters to over estimate their actual ability under the actual field conditions, especially during the stress, time pressure and excitement of an actual hunt.
I don’t know many ethical hunters who will take shots beyond about 400 yards. That’s partly because as hunters they recognize that if they can’t close the distance to 400 yards or less, they are not much of a hunter. It’s also partly because as ethical hunters and shooters, they are better at assessing and acknowledging the limits under which they can reliably (PK= 90% or more) put the first shot in the vitals of a game animal. It doesn’t mean they won’t occasionally take a longer shot, but it just means the conditions would have to be ideal for them to take such a shot.
In contrast I’ve encountered long range hunters who will attempt a shot at long range and “miss”, claiming a clean miss when the animal was in fact hit, but not obviously so due to marginal or sub effective terminal ballistics. They then don’t even attempt to track the animal.
We all lose when things like that happen. For example back in my GF&P days tournament fisherman would adhere to the legal limit of 6 walleye per day per fisherman, but the first 6 each of the, caught would go in the lived well, and they’d spend the rest of the day catching fish and releasing the smallest one in the live well. The problem is that while legal, walleye kept in a live well for any period of time don’t survive then re released. It doesn’t matter how much water is circulating through it, the stress involved results in a dead fish. Consequently after any tournament I’d dive in various bays and inlets on popular walleye habitat and find hundreds of dead walleye on the bottom.
The end result? The laws was changed to make that practice illegal, as fishermen themselves were not ethical enough to just not do it.
Ironically the morons involved end up using that to back up their argument that if it’s (still) “legal” if must be “ethical”. They are also usually the same folks claiming small government and less regulation is better. I agree that it is, buy the unethical and irresponsible people like that are why we the rest of us who act ethically can’t have smaller government and less regulation.
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The same common sense and ethical responsibility applies to selling a gun face to face.
Personally, while I can legally sell a long gun face to face in NC with no special requirements I still ask to see a valid and current concealed handgun permit, or a current and recent pistol purchase permit issued to demonstrate to a minimum level that they are not a prohibited individual.
And if the are purchasing a handgun, I also keep a copy of the concealed carry permit and state issued ID, or keep a copy of the ID and the actual purchase permit along with the receipt - as a matter of staying in compliance with state law.
If the are purchasing a long gun and do not have a concealed carry permit or a pistol purchase permit, I meet them at one of the local gun shops that will run a NICS check on the individual for a nominal fee ($5). They do that as a public service to ensure that private sellers have a means to run a back ground check on a prospective buyer. It’s become more work for them as due to ATF becoming more restrictive on its rules, they have to log the gun in and out of the bound book. Sadly, while the shop owners fully support universal background checks, they don’t advertise it due to fears of offending customers as universal background checks are associated with anti gun efforts rather than being viewed as responsible gun ownership.
There’s also the common sense side of it. If a prospective buyer asks:
- “do you have to do background checks?”; or
- “do you do background checks?”;
the answer is always “yes”. It follows as a matter of ethics and responsibility that you just don’t sell to the individual if the response to your answer isn’t “good!” and or they don’t immediately pull out a concealed carry permit or other suitable documentation. No sale. Period. Full stop. Regardless of whether the law allows it or not.
