Duke Leto
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2.) The notional plan was to use a system where they tracked people whom they had probable cause to believe legal purchases would then be illegally resold.
Which is a notional claim that any rational person would have to reject on it's face. The only way they could have more than a suspicion is if someone checks the box on their 4473 form that they are purchasing the gun for someone else, which no straw buyer would actually do, or if the gun ends up in the hands of the criminal.
Well, now we're splitting hairs on a point I don't think we have any reason to disagree on. The reality is that probable cause is whatever the investigating officer can convince the case and appeals judges it is. A judge in one jurisdiction might see multiple gun purchases as reason for a search warrant, another might not.
I'm inclined to prefer a more rigorous system of licensing and standards for resale than the gun lobby currently allows. You might disagree.
My point was simply that it was a political Catch-22 and the Right would appeal to mutually exclusive prejudices in declaiming the program no matter what happened.