first, you seem to be confusing the terms 'dealer' with 'private seller'. If the seller does not have an FFL license and is only selling one or two guns, then they are not a dealer and are completely within not only the law, but their constitutional right to contract by selling their own private property to another. Now, if the seller is selling a dozen different guns at one show through his booth, and doesn't have a license, then he is in technical violation of several federal laws and should be prosecuted.
First off, I wasn't about what I was originally discussing...the FFL license scenario was introduced by another poster in and effort to what, diffuse the damning evidence of the video and it's implications? Well, it doesn't. Gunners always feel that rattling off technical explanations alieviates the documentations of crimes directly related to abuse of lax gun laws and legal loopholes within said laws.....a failed premise on their part.
as to your comment of
"I was just told that the dealers in question did NOT have certain licenses....my question is, why not make a rule that all do?"
Prior to the 94 NICS law, this was required. If I wanted to sell guns out of my house, I had to have the FFL. Didn't matter if I sold one gun a month or one gun a week, but FFL licenses weren't expensive back then either. In their rush to 'do something' about guns, the democrats and bradys demanded all sorts of changes to existing federal gun laws and in their desire to implement their wants, they accepted certain compromises. One of those wants was to eliminate FFL licenses for people selling out of their homes, their compromise was to not force background NICS checks for private sales.
The key word here is "compromise"....which has resulted in a loophole, as CaptBillytheKid explained to me. The Brady Bill did not hamper gun shows "No state requirement that a Brady criminal background check be done on people buying guns at gun shows if they are sold by "private" individuals or gun "collectors." Gun shows can operate on a "no questions asked, cash-and-carry" basis, making it easy for criminals and even juveniles to buy as many guns as they want at gun shows, including assault weapons. No records are required to be kept on gun show sales by private individuals or gun collectors, making it almost impossible for police to trace such weapons if they are used in a crime."[/COLOR]
technically the owners/promoters of the gunshow are just as liable as the crooked dealer if those 19 guns are tied to any crimes in the near future.
no, technically they aren't. gun show promoters are no more responsible for illegal gun sales by dealers than a car dealer who sells a car to someone without a drivers license and that person then does a hit and run.