Gun control gone crazier
I've been waiting patiently for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATFE) to grant me my Federal Firearms License (FFL). I submitted my paperwork June 1 and here it is creeping ever closer to September. I can't get my gunsmith permit from Little Martin County to work out of my home shop without it, nor will I spend big bucks on an advanced gunsmith class until I have the FFL in my grubby little hands. But I'm lucky to live in Little Martin, as this story from New Paris, Ohio, demonstrates:
When neighbors heard Chad Halle wanted to sell guns out of his house, they had visions of cases of handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Truth is, he wants to order five or six a year for friends and fellow collectors. He won't store any at the Clunette Street house and he won't even advertise.
Hearing that, some people who signed a petition against Halle's "hobby" changed their minds. "It put our mind at ease," Tim Mullins said Thursday evening. "By selling like that it ain't like it's going to be, 'Come and shop and see all that we've got.'" Earlier Thursday, the Elkhart County Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously to grant Halle's request.
"This is just a hobby process for Mr. Halle. He's not interested in being a big gun dealer," Halle's attorney, Loren Sloat, told the board. Halle is a collector and also enjoys target practice at local ranges. By becoming a dealer, he can sell guns to his friends at wholesale prices. Halle offered to live by a list of restrictions -- including no advertising, only one pending order at a time, no assault weapons and no walk-in customers.
After the meeting, he and friends even told concerned neighbors how to report him if he broke any of those restrictions. They also outlined the federal requirements he must followed.
Not everyone was sold on the idea:
Main Street resident Opal Tarman told the board, "I am really opposed to this; it will devaluate our property." Another neighbor told the board he was afraid people would break into the house and steal any guns that are there. Halle responded that not only will he have no inventory, but his house also has many security measures. Neighbor Tim Helmuth talked to Halle and his friends after the meeting. He said he was worried the business would get bigger, but was told that couldn't happen without another public meeting.
"I will be watching," he told Halle. "I hope I don't have anything to look for."
Thank goodness the local bureaucrats in Little Martin are not so ignorant or prohibitive. Thank goodness my neighbors are not so ignorant, period. If Mr. Halle's neighbors and local government had a collective clue as to what he has to go through to pursue his honest hobby, and how his little cottage business will be federally restricted and regulated, they would probably help him rather than be the uninformed ass bags they appear to be.
Thanks for common sense, Little Martin.