So you want to buy a gun online? You're in luck! There are dozens of websites out there prepared to supply you with
whatever gun you're looking for. Whether it's a rifle or shotgun,
semi-auto pistol or revolver, or even a Class III item like a machinegun, it can be found on the internet. The only thing keeping you
from enjoying eternal firearms bliss is that you
don't know how to buy a gun online. I can understand if you're nervous or intimidated by the idea - there are rules, and you don't want
to get ripped off. But we can help you with that.
The first question that needs to be answered is: Are you legally allowed to buy a gun? Generally speaking, if you are over the age of 18 and
NOT a convicted felon, you can purchase any kind of
long gun (shotguns and rifles). If you are over the age of 21 and NOT a convicted felon, you can purchase both handguns and long guns.
That's generally speaking. While not usually the case,
there may be additional rules specific to your state. For example, some states don't allow anyone with a domestic violence conviction
(even a misdemeanor) to own a gun. If you've never gotten in any kind of legal trouble, and you're over the age of 21, you're good to go.
Next, you should figure out what kind of gun you want. Knowing what you want
before you start looking for a gun is important, because
there are still states out there that have funny ideas about
your right to be armed, and have prohibitions on certain classes of weapons. In other words, the purchase of some guns may be illegal where you live.
For example, California only permits the sale of handguns
that are on the
State Attorney General's drop-test list. Weird, right? Some cities have complete
bans on handguns. In New Jersey, the
sale of an air gun is treated like the
sale of a firearm. Knowing
not just what you want, but whether it's legal to buy is important. So how do you find out if the type of gun you want is legal to buy in the state
you live in? And how do you know if YOU are
legally able to purchase a gun? Great question!
The answer is surprisingly easy. Visit your local gun shop. Every gun shop is required to have an FFL or Federal Firearms License. This is a
license issued by the BATFE (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives), that permits a person or business to conduct the sale of guns. The rules about who can sell guns are pretty straightforward.
If you are selling guns that aren't in your
private collection, you're in the "business" of selling guns and you need an FFL. An FFL can legally transfer ownership of a gun from one party to
another, and that's important if you're going to be
buying a gun. Make friends with the folks at your local gun shop. They know the rules and regulations specific to the area that you're living, and
they'll keep you out of trouble about what you can,
or can't buy.
If you have a problem finding someone locally who is willing to do the transfer for your internet gun purchase, we can help. GunAuction.com has
an FFL Network, a group of FFL holders throughout the U.S. who will do your transfer for you.
Just search the FFL Network for an FFL holder that is nearby. Also, before you try to buy a gun online,
it's a good idea to meet the FFL holder in the flesh and introduce
yourself. You are after all, buying a gun! Let them know you'll be having someone send
them a gun to transfer. That'll also help avoid the uncomfortable surprise of the FFL holder having a strange gun arrive at their doorstep.
After you've found a local FFL willing to do the transfer, the next part is the fun part - finding and buying your gun online! Here at
GunAuction.com, we have a huge variety of guns available for sale
from sellers all over the U.S. I can't tell you what kind of gun you need... Wait a minute... Yes, I can! You need them all. Buy them all. But don't try to buy them all at once. Make sure to save some for
the rest of us and start slow by finding one gun you'd like to start with.
I get asked this question a lot. I understand the confusion regarding this subject. We get exposed to a lot of TV and movies that
depict the valiant homeowner either saddling up with an emasculating golf club, or reaching for the trusty handgun. If you don't have any training
with a handgun, I don't recommend it as your first choice. A handgun is a specialized piece of gear that requires
a lot of training before it can be
used safely and effectively in a self-defense situation. My most recommended gun for home-defense is the trusty
Remington 870 pump shotgun.
There are a couple of reasons I recommend the 870. Shotguns send clouds of lead in the bad guy's direction, and it's length
means it's easier to keep pointed in the bad guy's direction. Your rounds are less likely to overpenetrate, which means that if you miss the bad guy,
your rounds won't go through more than a few layers of sheet rock (a problem with larger handgun or rifle rounds). It's been made by Remington for
decades, and will likely be made for decades more, which means plenty of spare parts. And it's a pump shotgun, which means the mechanism for loading
your next shell is less likely to jam under stress. Lastly, in a pinch, it can double as a club. If you run out of shells and your home invader is
still stupid enough to be around and upright, start beating him about the head until he's horizontal.
When you buy a gun online, follow these four rules to cover your (ahem) assets.
The seller's reputation should be well established. You should see a bunch of positive feedback for sales completed by other buyers with that seller. The seller
doesn't have to have perfect feedback - after all, you can't please everyone all the time. But the vast majority of feedback should be positive. My personal rule
of thumb is a maximum of one negative for every twenty positives - and preferably no negatives at all. Most sellers at GunAuction.com have far fewer negatives than
that. As a seller, it isn't hard to keep buyers happy, and get positive feedback. And there are plenty of sellers with no negatives at all. This doesn't mean you
shouldn't buy from sellers without any feedback. After all, everyone has to start somewhere! But it does mean that as a beginning buyer, it's best to start with an
experienced seller.
You need to see some pictures - lots of them. Digital cameras are everywhere these days. And transferring a picture from a camera to the computer
is an almost completely automated process. A picture
is worth a thousand words, right? And a lot of pictures? Well, you do the math. The pictures should be a decent quality, well lit with lots of detail,
and from every angle. You want to make sure that the item
you receive looks exactly identical to the item that you bid on. I especially like it when the seller takes a picture of the serial number, for
obvious reasons. Believe it or not, there are sellers out
there that don't put pictures in their auctions. While these items do sell, their success rates are much lower than those sellers that include pictures.
Most reputable websites have a way for sellers to upload pictures - the really good ones like GunAuction.com let sellers upload pictures for free.
And pictures really help to avoid disputes. I'm not
saying you shouldn't bid in auctions without pictures. But I don't.
Don't buy something as expensive as a gun online unless you can return it for a refund, no questions asked. The way I see it,
if the seller isn't willing to take a return, I'm not willing to risk my money. I don't care about so-called bidder's insurance. Every online insurance policy
I've seen has been more marketing gimmick than actual insurance, usually designed to protect the insurance company instead of you. I'm not saying all "Bidder's Insurance" is a scam.
I'm just saying that if I put "Bidders Insurance" right next to scam, I usually can't tell the difference.
When push comes to shove, I think I'd rather like my money back without a fight. GunAuction.com has a
3 Day Inspection Period, which most sellers offer, and which allows you to really examine your purchase.
If you don't like the gun, and you don't fire it or turn any screws on it, you can return it for a full refund of your purchase price, minus shipping. Most sellers at
GunAuction.com abide by this rule. As a buyer, if there are any problems, this assures that you'll get your money back instead of filling out
claim forms for insurance you'll never actually collect.
It's important to read everything the seller says about how he conducts his sales. Knowing
how you'll be paying for an item is just as important as
the amount you'll be paying. I like a seller that gives me as much information as possible. If the seller charges a flat rate for shipping, fine.
If the seller only charges actual shipping costs, cool. But knowing that up front is important. Insist that the seller insures the shipment. That may sound
contradictory given my earlier statements. But unlike "Bidders Insurance", shipping insurance is an actual thing that actually works.
If the seller doesn't insure the shipment, and the shipment is damaged in transit, who is going to eat the loss? The seller? Nope. The seller has his money.
Damage in shipment doesn't happen very often. But if it does, shipping insurance makes everything easier. Be wary of sellers that don't have a clearly defined payment
and shipping policy. You may have gotten a great deal on the gun, but the seller may try to make it up with "handling" charges. A clearly communicated
payment and shipping policy avoids any confusion and hard feelings.
In order to save time, I'm not going to go through the bidding process, or give you the rundown on all the different ways you could purchase a gun online.
Let's just assume that you've been named the winner of your gun,
and it's time to pay. What should you do first? Send money? NO! The first thing you should do is contact the seller by phone. When you're named
the winner,
GunAuction.com gives you the seller's phone number in an email.
NEVER send money without first verbally confirming with the seller that you're the winner, and that you understand the seller's instructions on how
payment is to be made. If the website doesn't give you a phone number, walk away. If you can't contact the seller by
phone - don't send money! Period.
You should also be careful of
where you're being asked to send money. Many sellers accepted online payments in the form of credit cards, which I
personally love. If anything goes sideways with the transaction, you can often fall back on the credit card company to refund your money. But you're sometimes required
to send money in the form of money orders or checks.
NEVER SEND CASH. (It's surprising how many people think that's OK, but it's not.) If you're going to send money directly
to the seller, pay attention to where you're being asked to mail it. You should almost never send money to a place other than where the gun is located. If the seller listed the gun in California,
you shouldn't be sending money to New Hampshire, North Carolina, or Florida (as an example). If the seller doesn't have any feedback, you should
be especially wary. (Con artists don't
generally have a ton of good feedback.) This is a rare situation, but when it happens, it succeeds because the scammer is relying on the greed of the winning bidder to override the winning
bidder's good sense. We used to be pretty adamant about contacting the seller by phone, but since the initial writing of this guide, free phone numbers have become a thing. It's not the
gaurantee it used to be, but it's still a good idea to speak to the seller, just because it's another layer of security.
There are things the seller is going to need in order to send you your gun. First, payment. That's up to the seller, but don't be surprised to
hear a number of options including all major credit cards, money orders,
personal checks, cash, Bitcoin - we've even had sellers that accept gold or silver bullion. Personally, I like credit cards. There are a number of protections available to credit card users that just don't exist
for any other payment system. If your seller can accept credit cards,
it's because they've jumped through a number of hoops and background checks in order to do so.
The seller will need a signed copy of the FFL that you'll use in your area, before shipping the gun. Some FFL holders won't want to give you, the buyer, a copy of their FFL. That's fine, as long as the receiving
FFL holder is willing to send a copy to the seller.
So you've paid the seller and he has your FFL's information. Great! When you next hear from your seller, you should be getting a tracking number. This isn't the dark ages, when shipments disappeared into the
void for weeks before mysteriously arriving at your door. This is the information age! You can take that tracking number, and plug it in to the shipping company's website, and get an hour-by-hour status on the
location of your shipment. You should know exactly when your gun arrives at your FFL holder.
Once your gun arrives, immediately go and take a look at it. The clock on the 3 Day Inspection Period starts ticking the moment your gun arrives at the FFL holder. You need to get down there, open that package,
and make sure you're getting what you ordered. You're going to open that package, and feel the thrill of victory. You did it! You bought a gun online! You da man! Or da woman. You'll feel a warm glow for
days afterward, and tell all your friends. Awesomeness ensues for the entire planet. Yeah!
Only one last thing - leave feedback. Feedback is the conscience of the internet, and the currency of your online reputation. Without feedback, people who interact with either you or the seller won't know
how awesome you are. Or aren't. But you did everything right! The seller did everything right! Nothing but love, so make sure everyone knows about it. It goes without saying (but I'm saying it) that you
shouldn't be buying from a website that doesn't allow you to post feedback. With GunAuction.com, the process couldn't be easier. Just log in to "My Closed Bids", find the closed auction, and click on "Leave Feedback"
in the right-hand column. Leave a short description of how great the seller was, and you're done!
You might want to check back in a few days, and review your own feedback about the transaction. As you did
everything right (paying immediately, sending FFL info right away, leaving positive feedback on the seller) you should see feedback of your own about the transaction. If you see something unusual about your feedback,
make sure you contact the seller right away. Discovering that the seller accidentally left a negative feedback six months after the fact, when you should have gotten a positive, makes sorting the mistake out that
much harder. Keep an eye on your feedback to make sure you're getting what you deserve.
Let's review, shall we?
1) Make sure you can legally buy the gun you'd like to own BEFORE buying it online.
2) When you buy a gun, look for these four things:
a. Only use an online venue if they allow you to return a gun FOR ANY REASON.
b. Only buy from reputable sellers with feedback left by previous buyers.
c. Pictures. Lots of them. You shouldn't be trying to buy what you can't see.
d. Understand the payment terms and shipping policy BEFORE you buy.
3) You've won!
a. Contact the seller BY PHONE and confirm FFL, insurance, payment and shipping terms.
b. Only send money to the gun's location. If the gun is in California, the money should go there.
c. Track your shipment to your FFL.
d. Inspect your package on arrival and confirm that it's what you bought.
e. Celebratory high-fives all around! (optional)
4) Leave feedback on the seller - feedback is the conscience of the internet.
5) Rinse and repeat.
Easy, right? Yeah! Piece-o-cake. If you have any questions about this article, feel free to give us a holler. Following my instructions on "How to Buy A
Gun Online" in no way guarantees that your transaction will go flawlessly - but it should makes things go a lot smoother.
If I missed anything, that's weird because I've been doing this for nearly
two decades.
Huh. I'll have to think about that. Anyway, thanks for reading and enjoy your gun buying adventure!
Manny DelaCruz
CEO - GunAuction.com
