Many advocates of 'reasonable' gun control support policies like purchasing limits and background checks. The theory is that by limiting the number of firearms a person can purchase in a single month we can eliminate or reduce the 'straw purchases' where a criminal walks into a gun store and walks out with a dozen handguns for re-sale to prohibited persons.

The problem is that a criminal only needs one firearm. If he can get a friend or family member to purchase a gun, and he can get access to it then no straw purchase has occurred. This type of transaction is totally below the radar of any sort of purchasing database.

Similarly, background checks are largely verification of what we already know. The criminals who can't pass a background check get their guns illegally, either through a straw purchaser or more likely from another illegal source - guns stolen in burglaries.

These sorts of strategies simply create new piles of red tape that the honest citizens have to wade through. I already own guns so a waiting period serves no purpose. A background check would only prevent me from purchasing more guns (assuming my status changed to being a prohibited purchaser.)

One gun a month means that parents and grandparents that want to buy .22s for the kids are going to have to start planning months in advance. As a firearms trainer it is certainly reasonable for me to purchase multiple firearms in the same month to outfit a class. No to mention that there is something that is simply un-American and anti-freedom about having some policy-wonk-bean-counter enforcing some kind of nanny state rationing. Are you going to tell me how many bottles of beer I can buy in a month too?

For all of the very real red tape and expense there is no real benefit in terms of keeping firearms out of the hands of the people who shouldn't have them, but there is a huge cost to the people who haven't done anything wrong.