Salon.com > Online gun market http://www.salon.com Sat, 25 May 2013 20:30:00 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Test case for the online gun market http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/a_test_case_for_the_online_gun_market/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/a_test_case_for_the_online_gun_market/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:12:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13122804 In a lawsuit that may set a precedent for cases involving the burgeoning online gun trade, the family of a woman shot dead last year is suing the website through which her shooter acquired his weapon.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a lawsuit in Illinois this morning against Armslist.com -- a Craigslist style listing site for firearms on behalf of the family of Jitka Vesel, a 36-year-old Czech immigrant who was murdered by a jilted lover. Vesel was fatally shot with .40-calliber handgun purchased illegally on the site. According to the Guardian, Armslist is among 4,000 websites which engage in gun-selling in the U.S.

The suit comes a day after a high profile shooting at an Oregon mall killed three including the gunman.

It is currently totally legal for individual, unlicensed gun dealers --  classified as "private sellers" -- to sell weapons online or at gun shows without carrying out background checks on customers. It's a loophole that "has been widely denounced by gun control advocates," noted the Guardian's Ed Pilkington. However, in the case of Vesel's murder, the killer was a Russian immigrant and lived out-of-state therefore did not qualify to legally buy the firearm from the seller who posted it on Armslist.

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