...the keyword there was "almost". I set up a meeting with someone who was interested in my Winchester Model 37 shotgun. We agreed to meet at a range local to me. He said he would be there in an hour and would call before he got there. I waited and waited and then just headed to the range arriving about an hour and a half after we spoke to one another. I sat there awhile, then went inside to assure we could use the range for him to look at the gun. I had done it there before but it had been sometime since the last time. The range person told me we could not use the range for that purpose unless he paid $22 as a nonresident and I paid $10 as a resident. Back to the parking lot and I called my local FFL who said sure the buyer could look at it at his shop - no problem.
Shortly after that, the buyer called and said he was lost. He was less than a 1/8 of a mile from the range and I told him so and he said he would try to find it. About 15 minutes later he called again and told me he was in a parking lot at a certain location because he still
could not find the range. I drove there only because I know that GPS devices often lead the people looking for the range to the first location he had mentioned and because the other parking lot he was then in was a very public location and very close to the range. That lot was literally directly across the road from the range entrance, I could not figure how he had missed it.
Anyway, I went to the lot and met him, then explained about the range wanting to charge so much to use their facility for 5 minutes at most. I suggested he follow me to my FFL less than 10 minutes away. I gave him the name (which had also been in my ad) and was about to give him the address when he said we should go to far corner or out of the way less busy area of the parking lot and do the deal there! That was not about to happen and I immediatelty told him so. I reminded him of my requirement that the buyer pass a NICS check at my local FFL. He literally waved me off and said he doesn't have to have a NICS check because he is an FFL licensee. He indicated he had his FFL, then went to his vehicle, pulled out an envelope and took a paper out of it and handed it to me. It was apparently a photocopy of a NY State Dealer in firearms license and was not an FFL and I really did not do more than glance at it when I saw that. I simply and politely told him I would only sell the gun to someone who passed a NICS check and he said forget it and got back into his vehicle.
At that point I said goodbye and drove away. I don't know about where you live but I can tell you that there is no way under the sun (or under the moon or the dark of the darkest night) that I am about to sell someone a firearm, out of my car's trunk, in a parking lot, in NY State. This isn't AZ or KY or even NH and it sure as hell is not KS so there is no way I am about to do anything that even hints of impropriety or illegality with firearms here in feudal kingdom of Cuomoistan. Even if there was absolutely nothing legally wrong with such a sale (and mind you handling an uncased shotgun in a public parking lot in Nassau County, NY would be considered illegal by any passing cop) there was just too much wrong with this scenario.
Things that prickled the hairs on my neck were those such as: him being unable to find the place immediately across the road from where he was parked, his showing me a NY State Dealer in Firearms License copy instead of an FFL, him not having informed me beforehand that he was an FFL holder but yet asked me if I was a dealer while we made arrangements over the phone earlier, his insistence that we move to a more out of the way area in the parking lot in a location he chose instead of meeting at our previously agreed upon and easily found meeting place, his refusal to go to the dealer's shop and him wanting to buy it from me out of the trunk of my car, all without him going through a NICS check. (Yeah, I know dealers are not required to pass a NICS check by law but it was one of my requirements plainly mentioned in my ad.)
I am very happy I did not invite this person to my home to view the gun here. For all I know he is as honest as the day is long but all that stuff gave me the creeps, especially the bit about wanting to do a firearms transaction in a more out of the way place within the parking lot. It merely could have been he was a legitimate FFL holder and wanted to do a deal without the additional hassle of a drive to my local FFL and thus was willing to try to get me to do it in the parking lot, or could have been that he was working with or was part of law enforcement and trying to set me up for an arrest on some sort of weapon sales charges if I did something stupid and illegal, or that he was with someone else and hoping to rip me off in that other more out of the way corner of the parking lot. Whichever, I was not about to find out because I was not about to complete a sale other than under my terms that had been announced in my ad.
All the best,
Glenn B
