TAMAQUA - For generations of young hunters, the first firearms they could truly call their own came in a long, narrow box under the tree Christmas morning with their name on the tag.
No matter if the contents inside that box was a bolt-action .22 rifle that would make them ruler of the squirrel woods, a pump-action shotgun that would be the match for any rabbit or a lever-action .30-30 rifle that would be used in the deer woods some 11 months later, that gift was a dream come true.
In simpler times, the biggest concern for the buyer of a firearm when making the purchase as a gift was where to hide it until the time came for it to magically appear under the Christmas tree the night of Dec. 24. Today, those who legally purchase firearms have much greater concerns.
Background checks, permits and various licenses affect the purchase and ownership of firearms, depending on the type. All of this can be confusing to the casual buyer, and not helping the confusion is the mainstream national media lumping regulations that govern the purchase and ownership of firearms as one size fits all for every state.
In Pennsylvania, much of the anti-gun rhetoric written by headline-seeking political leaders and printed and broadcast as fact without questioning those statements are non-issues, as many of our state laws are stricter than federal laws. No one is allowed to legally purchase a firearm from a federally licensed dealer without first filling out a U.S. Department of Justice Firearms Transaction Record and then undergoing an instant background check.
According to Brett Hoch, the buyer for Ed's Sports Shop in Tamaqua, this background check serves two important functions: preventing those with criminal records from making a purchase and preventing straw purchases, which is the practice of purchasing a firearm for someone who would fail the background check. He said it is the regulation that pertains to straw purchases, however, that sometimes causes confusion for some potential buyers who purchase a firearm as a gift.
"It is absolutely legal for someone who can legally purchase a firearm to buy one as a gift for someone else," Hoch said. "On the federal transaction record the first question asks if the person making the purchase is the actual buyer and not acquiring the firearm for another person.
"On Page 4 of the form, it explains in detail that someone who is purchasing a firearm to give as a gift is still considered to be the actual buyer of the firearm. This form has to be filled out and the telephone background check done every time a firearm is purchased.
"When we make the call, the criminal history, the mental health history and the military history of the purchaser is made. This has been in place since the passing of the Brady Bill, and if the information in the boxes checked on the form is correct, the purchase is completed."
As with all computerized services there can be glitches with the background check, and sometimes a person who may legally own a firearm may initially be refused. While this inconvenience is annoying, it is usually corrected by resubmitting the information.
In Pennsylvania anyone who has been convicted of a crime rated a misdemeanor 1 or a felony is denied the purchase a firearm, as are those who were convicted of or pleaded guilty to a crime that would carry a two-year sentence or more, even if no time was served. Others not permitted to legally purchase in Pennsylvania are those dishonorably discharged from the military or charged with a crime of domestic violence.
"Christmas is always busy with people buying firearms as gifts, but a lot of them are not being bought just for kids," Hoch said. "With so many more women taking up hunting and becoming interested in the shooting sports, now it's the husbands who are buying the guns for their wives.
"Probably the most unique situation we've had occurred a few years ago when a father and his adult son both wanted to purchase for the other the same high-end rifle that sold for around $5,000. We didn't want to spoil their Christmas, but kept putting them off because we knew that both of them would use the rifle and that they didn't want to buy two rifles, so we finally told the son because the father had come in first."
Obviously, the box under the tree that Christmas produced memories to rival those of unwrapping that first firearm decades earlier.