Close The Car Show Loophole

The following bit of satire was originally published on the Pro-Gun New Hampshire webpage. It is being reprinted with the kind permission of the author, attorney Evan Nappen.

Close the Car Show Loophole!

By Evan F. Nappen, Esq.

[Posted Monday, February 14, 2011, at 6:40 p.m.] At car shows and swaps throughout the United States, cars are sold in private sales with no dealer being involved. Car shows at which cars are exhibited or offered for sale or exchange provide a convenient and centralized commercial location where criminals and other wrongdoers obtain cars without credit background checks and without records that enable car tracing.

We all know that cars kill and that they are one of the biggest killers in the US. Cars cause accidents and facilitate crimes. Cars even cause mass murder and mayhem (like intentionally driving into a crowd). Cars are a menace that must be tightly controlled.

Some of these cars end up in criminal hands as get-away cars or are used by murderers, drug dealers or gang-bangers. Some cars are smuggled into Mexico and used by drug lords there. Convicted felons, mentally deranged persons, domestic abusers, and aliens unlawfully in the US can all buy a car at a show. Even those on the terrorist watch list can go to a car show and buy a car.

Many of these cars have transmissions which are automatic and/or semi-automatic. At these car shows various accessories are freely bought and sold, like extended gas tanks, folding seats and even mufflers. One can also buy "a shoulder thing that goes up," also known as a safety belt.

Some cars are converted and many are customized. Why would anyone need such a car? The police are “out-carred” on a daily basis. Many departments say they need more horsepower, but can’t afford it. How many must die before we close the car show loophole?

Fortunately, Representative McCarthyism and Senator Lousenburp have filed bills to require all car transfers at car shows and swaps to go through a dealer. They have the full support of Mayor Bloomingidiot and C.M.A.Y.R. (Corrupt Mayors Against Your Rights) Some of the important features of the bill are as follows:

1) It will insure that a credit background check is run, a record is made and all paperwork will be done. Dealers can only sell to customers who have proper identification so a computer check can be done.

2) “Car event operators” must submit names of all “vendors” to the FBI, both before and after the show. It does not matter whether any vendors sold a car. A private citizen going to a car show hoping to sell or trade a car, but who does not find a buyer and leaves with his own car, would remain in a “vendor” file with the FBI forever.

3) It would require registration of car shows. This would allow the authorities to make sure event organizers have no paperwork violations. It would also allow government agents to question car owners who gather for purposes other than selling cars.

4) It allows inspection, at a car show, of a show promoter’s or dealer’s entire business records—including records of transactions that occurred at other shows or at a dealer’s licensed place of business.

5) It turns casual conversations into “car show sales.” A person could still agree to sell a car to a friend in a conversation at the local gas station; but if the same conversation took place at a car show, the credit check requirement would forever apply to that car. It even applies to a car that a seller and buyer talk about at a car show, but don’t have with them.

This should fix the car show loophole. Next to be fixed are the wedding show loophole, home improvement show loophole, sports memorabilia show loophole, coin show loophole, flower show loophole, model train show loophole, doll show loophole, boat show loophole, motorcycle show loophole, comic book show loophole, horse show loophole, golf show loophole, and of course the gun show loophole. If it saves just one life it’s worth it. We have to do it, for the children.

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Attorney Evan Nappen is the General Counsel for Pro-Gun New Hampshire. He practices law in Concord, New Hampshire, and Eatontown, New Jersey.