The "Newspaper Loophole"

Is this story a parody, or is it for real?

Gun control activists nationwide are pressuring newspapers to stop accepting legal classified advertising of firearms for sale by private citizens. Advocates of gun owners' rights said Thursday that anti-gun forces apparently aren't content with ignoring the Second Amendment and now want to ignore the First Amendment as well.

"The issue is not guns, but the way guns are sold," claimed John Johnson, coordinator of the so-called National Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole, in a press release Wednesday. "In an age of increasing concern for public safety, we find it difficult to defend a newspaper's part in the private sale of firearms by unlicensed sellers without a criminal background check of the would-be buyer."

The campaign acknowledges that it is completely legal for private citizens to sell guns to other private citizens but wants to use privately owned newspapers to inhibit such sales.

"We recognize that classified ads for guns are perfectly legal under federal and [your State] state law," the campaign writes in a sample letter for activists to send to newspaper publishers. "But just because something is legal doesn't mean that it is good policy."

Sure, the National Campaign to Close the Newspaper Loophole is legally allowed to advocate the restriction of my 1st Amendment rights, but is it good policy? I can think of a few other holes that need to be closed.