From BATF - " A person may loan or rent a firearm to a resident of any State for temporary use for lawful sporting purposes, if he does not know or have reasonable cause to believe the person is prohibited from receiving or possessing firearms under Federal law."
So, if a loan of a firearm for sporting purposes is a permissible transfer of possession without transfer of ownership, why wouldn't delivery to an FFL which is conditioned upon physical transfer to the buyer be a lawful temporary use and the return of a refused gun to the owner be alright as well since there's been no transfer of ownership?...Geo
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Because: (1) the sender would not have sent the firearm - across state lines - without the check having cleared. Ownership changes from seller to buyer when the check clears and the shipment leaves seller. If the terms of the sale say "3 day inspection" or such, the transfer of ownership would be contingent on the firearm passing inspection or the 3 days running out (as would the seller's right to keep the money). Once that contingency was fulfilled, ownership would change.
(2) the temporary loan of a firearm for sporting purposes does not implicate the firearm crossing state lines. (Conceivably, it could, but 99 44/100% of those temporary loans don't.)
Recall, the federal statute is written to govern sales between people from different states. Setting aside state laws that may impose their own requirements, the federal law requiring FFL transfers does not apply for sales between two people who are citizens of the same state. Private, unregistered, un-FFL'd sales are ok assuming you're willing to take the chance that your buyer (a) is not a prohibited person and (b) isn't making a straw purchase for Dopey D the repeat felon drug dealer or that your seller (c) didn't just lift the gun from someone's house or a LGS and (d) that it doesn't have bodies on it.)