[gozur88]

>That said - gun show loophole is just that - a loophole. Should be fixed.

The "gun show loophole" is a misnomer. It's not a loophole. It's simply the case in most states in the US for private sales you're allowed to sell your gun to another person without checking with the federal government first, something that's not true of dealers.

[ceejayoz]

"It's not a loophole. It's simply [describes something that anyone can see is a loophole]."

[cellshade]

It was an explicit compromise that was added in order to pass the original national background check legislation. A loophole is generally something unintended which this was not.

[ceejayoz]

That doesn't appear to be a universally agreed upon distinction. https://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Tax+Looph...

> A deliberate or accidental provision in tax law that allows an individual or corporation to be exempt from some provision. Most loopholes are deliberate and are created to ensure that the law is not draconian, to please a lobbyist, or for some other reason.

[gozur88]

Well, okay. In that case the word doesn't actually mean much beyond "this is the way the law is". What makes the "gun show loophole" rhetoric dishonest is it has nothing to do with gun shows.

[ceejayoz]

Gun shows are a convenient way to find a bunch of private sellers to easily exploit the deliberately created hole in the law.

Sure, you can call it the "private sale loophole" if you want. Go for it. The agonizing over the semantic merits of the "gun show" part of the term is the same tactic as turning any gun argument into a debate over "clip vs. magazine" or "there's no such thing as an assault rifle" stuff - intentional missing of the point to derail a necessary conversation. Might even call that "dishonest rhetoric".

[gozur88]

It's not an attempt to derail "a necessary conversation". There's no conversation, since neither side is going to budge. And it's not a semantic argument, either - you're using misleading rhetoric to misrepresent the law as it exists.

[alkonaut]

Yes. It seems like an obvious bug...