I live in a state that requires Universal Background Checks (California) and UBC's present another problem that is often overlooked. Put simply, it hurts small businesses.
CA law requires that as dealers, we are compelled to perform Private Party Transfers, and the fee that we charge for this "service" cannot exceed $10.00 (on top of the $25 that the state charges for background checks). The stated reason for the artificially low price is so that folks aren't disincentivized from complying with the law by having to pay market prices for the service.
The transfer process in California is a bit more complicated than in other states and, as a result, we lose an average of $40.00 or so for every PPT we perform at our shop. Here's what UBCs and PPTs look like at our shop:
- We have to pay for an employee's time to do the initial paperwork (having the buyer fill out a 4473, having the salesperson log into the CA background check system and fill out and submit a Dealer's Record Of Sale (DROS)).
- At some point during or immediately after the transfer, an employee has to add the firearm to our Bound Book/Point-of-Sale system. Since we're subject to both ATF and CA DOJ compliance audits, we also have to pay an employee to review and audit both the 4473 and DROS for guns that we store for the mandatory 10-day waiting period.
- Ten days later, an employees has to review all the paperwork, perform a "Safe Handling Demonstration" (making the customer perform a series of mandated steps to ensure that they know how to safely load and unload the firearm) if the firearm in question is a handgun, then collect more signatures and remove the gun from our Bound Book/Point-of-Sale system.
- At some point, all of this paperwork will be re-audited in-house to ensure that all the paperwork that is filled out at the time of delivery is in order.
All that for ten lousy bucks. As dealers, we get stuck with all of this extra work as "the cost of doing business". Every PPT that walks in the door literally takes money out of my paycheck. Furthermore, like any other transfer we're legally responsible for ensuring that all paperwork for PPTs is in compliance with all state and federal record keeping requirements... except we actually lose money for being forced to assume that liability. It sucks.
When someone talks about UBCs, feel free to ask them why they want to hurt small businesses and their working-class employees. Most folks that I talk to about the issue never consider these aspects of UBC laws.
This whole mess is coming to a gun store near you if you don't work to defeat every UBC law and every politician that supports them.