Totally ignoring fact that a bunch of they yahoos selling at gun shows are dealers -- have a table, and lay their guns out to entice yahoos -- but do not perform background checks.
If a licensed dealer sells a gun to someone and does not perform a background check, he's breaking the law. Are you saying that the yahoos are de facto unlicensed dealers? This is another reason we need an ATF head, to crack down on that, but in the absence of that, making it "more illegal" won't really do much. But people also sell guns at garage sales and swap meets.
Though we both agree on this:
I think a background check, etc., should performed even when dad dies and leaves his gun cache to the kids -- who may be drug addicts, or god knows what.
I'm with you there. It's illegal for a dad to give his son beer, for that matter, so this isn't exactly new Constitutional territory.
I'm thinking of five paradigmatic ways guns are transferred; call it a spectrum.
1. Person goes to a licensed dealer and buys a gun retail
2. Person goes to a private party in a gun-show or swap-meet setting and buys a gun
3. Person buys a gun from a private party in a more casual setting (classified ad, bulletin board, etc.)
4. Person buys a gun in an alley from a black market dealer
5. Person steals a gun
Obviously no background check requirement is going to stop 4 and 5. 1 is pretty easy to control, and those controls are working well. We're talking about 2 and 3. These are situations where, for instance, states are theoretically asking for sales tax but have a compliance rate of essentially 0% for that.
Do you think there's a way to really mandate background checks on scenarios 2 and 3? I do not, which is why I lean towards requiring all transfers of firearms to be scenario 1, and go through a licensed dealer.
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