Decent article, but this part bothers me:

The gun control bill, one of the administration’s most significant policy achievements, has provided the government with several tools to combat a flood of illegal firearms.

According to the article, the purpose of the bill is to stop the purchase of firearms by people who can’t pass background checks. Someone illegally purchasing a firearm doesn’t make the firearm itself illegal, it makes the transition illegal. The same firearm could be sold to someone who can pass a background check without issue. An illegal firearm is one that any person can’t legally own, such a 50 caliber machine gun without the proper permits. There’s a major difference between buying an illegal gun, and illegally buying a legal gun.

Anyways, pendantics aside, background checks seem like a common sense step towards responsible firearms sales. You need to pass a background check to purchase a gun at Big 5. Why wouldn’t you need to pass one to purchase it anywhere else? I was under the impression that if someone sold a gun to another person, they had to go down to an FFL and do a background check before swapping ownership. I know that’s how it works if you buy one from an auction site like guns.com. Have gun shows really always had exclusion from this law?