The federal government must monitor newspaper online advertising if it wants to oversee gun sales in the way President Barack Obama urged January 5.
That’s because Obama’s ambiguous rule is not actually targeting online sales, which already require a background check before being completed. Instead, he is targeting online advertisements for guns, or classified ads. They’re often used when a gun-owner wants to sell one gun to build on-hand cash to buy a better gun or larger caliber.
With online advertisements or classified ads, the individual selling a gun can do so without a formal background check if–and only if–they meet in person. In other words, if they live in close proximity to one another so the buyer could drive to meet the seller and purchase the gun privately.
This type of private, person-to-person gun sale is not enabling mass shootings; the New York Daily News reports that the last 15 “mass killers” went through background checks for their guns. But these person-to-person gun sales are being stigmatized by Obama and other Democrats as a way to hinder people’s ability to defend themselves with guns.
This is not the first time we’ve been down this road. In 2013 Breitbart News warned that the gun-control legislation being pushed by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) was insidious, and would have to cover newspapers’ classifieds ads.
It is still true today. And because online classifieds and print classifieds work the same way, expanding executive gun control to cover the latter is simply a matter of time.
The world is still waiting for House Speaker Paul Ryan or Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to step up and tell us how they plan to stop this full frontal assault on freedom.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.