Buzz,
I wonder about the Montana law also. I have no problems with the 15 day waiting period we have here while they supposedly do a background check. I am sure since the following episode happened the state has started doing it correctly.
A few years back some guy from New York, not sure if it was the city or state, came out here to the L.A. area and bought a gun from a dealer. He waited the mandatory 2 weeks or 15 days and went in and got the gun. A short time later he killed a person back in New York with it during a robbery I believe it was. The police there ran the gun through the data base and it never came up. So they traced it back from the manufacturer and to the store that sold it. Asked the L.A. police to check into why that dealer had sold a gun to an out of state felon. They checked and the dealer was cleared of any wrong doing. He took all the information the guy gave and sent it in to the state to verify. He got back an all clear statement and let the guy have the gun. When they started to try to find out why the state had given him a clearance, it turned out his address was a run down motel, he had only stayed there 2 nights and left, the state had no record of him being a felon, and could never explain how they cleared him and accepted his being a resident of this state. Just one of those fell through the crack things. This information was sent to all of the people involved in gun classes and training back at that time. If he had removed the serial numbers and any markings from the gun in a way they couldn't trace it, they would never have known it was bought out here. I have to renew my permit every 2 years and they take my finger prints every time though they are on record for a number of reasons.
Now there are a lot of unregistered guns in this area as all of the dope dealers and thugs have them, and if you have enough money you can buy about anything including a machine gun or military equipment. So to just open up sales of guns to anyone that wants one with no checks of any kind I don't agree with. But the checks aren't going to stop the bad guys from having guns.
Ron
