The amendment, offered by Republican Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, would have required background checks for private sales at gun shows and on the Internet, two areas that are currently exempt from federal law.
But it specifically exempted transactions between family members from the background check requirement. So we wondered what circumstances the NRA envisioned that could have "criminalized certain private transfers of firearms."
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Current law requires checks on purchases only from federally licensed gun dealers. So the Manchin-Toomey amendment attempted to find middle ground -- expanding the checks to gun shows and Internet sales, but not requiring them of family members and friends giving or selling guns to each other.
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"As under current law, transfers between family, friends and neighbors do not require background checks. You can give or sell a gun to your brother, your neighbor, your co-worker without a background check. You can post a gun for sale on the cork bulletin board at your church or your job without a background check," a press release from the senators said.
The amendment itself specifically said background checks wouldn’t be required of family members if "the transfer is made between spouses, between parents or spouses of parents and their children or spouses of their children, between siblings or spouses of siblings, or between grandparents or spouses of grandparents and their grandchildren or spouses of their grandchildren, or between aunts or uncles or their spouses and their nieces or nephews or their spouses, or between first cousins, if the transferor does not know or have reasonable cause to believe that the transferee is prohibited from receiving or possessing a firearm under Federal, State, or local law."
"It’d have to be pretty distant family" for the background check rule to apply, said Chris Calabrese, legal counsel for the ACLU.
