If it involves Michael Bloomberg and MAIG, you know that the anti-gun spin is going to be fast, furious, and deceptive:

Thousands of guns could be sold illegally by unlicensed firearms dealers on just one classified ad website, according to an investigation commissioned by Mayor Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, one of the nation’s leading gun-control advocates and a co-founder of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, asked his investigators to spend eight weeks monitoring the ads on Armslist.com. The classified marketplace, known as a “Craigslist for guns,” is one of the nation’s largest firearms websites.

The inquiry found that nearly one-third of gun ads on the site were posted by high-volume sellers who do not possess the mandatory federal firearms license. At that pace, nearly 244,000 guns would be sold illegally a year due to the “private sale loophole,” which does not require a background check, Bloomberg said Thursday.

“Unlicensed sellers of firearms are flooding the Internet with weapons,” Bloomberg said at City Hall news conference. “The result is a massive online, largely unregulated, secondhand firearms market that threatens the safety of all of us.”

Let’s unpack MAIG’s deceptive claims, starting with the would “could” in the very first sentence.

Thousands of guns could be sold illegally by unlicensed firearms dealers…

“Could?”

In other words, Bloomberg’s “investigation” found no conclusive evidence that any illegal transactions took place… not one illegal sale. If they did confirm so much as a single illegal sale, they would have trumpeted it from the rooftops, but their investigation failed, so they issues a weasel-worded “could” instead of manning up and admitting, “We found no conclusive evidence that anyone was selling guns illegally on Armslist.”

The inquiry found that nearly one-third of gun ads on the site were posted by high-volume sellers…

How does Bloomberg and his flock of criminal mayors define “high volume sellers?” The report doesn’t say. The simple fact of the matter is that there isn’t a specific number of firearms that a seller must sell per year to require a federal firearms license. Someone who intends to sell firearms as a business would need to purchase an FFL to sell a single gun, hypothetically speaking, but it is also possible for an active collector and trader to buy and sell 20 guns a year without running afoul of either the letter or the spirit of the law. As a matter of absolute fact, the ATF will not issue you a federal firearms license for your personal use.

At that pace, nearly 244,000 guns would be sold illegally a year due to the “private sale loophole”…

The ability to sell your private property to another citizen who may legally possess that same property without the permission of an intrusive government is a basic human right, not a loophole.

Moreover, these sales are patently not illegal, as long as the seller isn’t engaging in commercial gun sales without a license, and isn’t selling to a person he has any reason to believe is a felon. It’s that simple. As noted in the opening paragraph of the story, Bllomberg’s group of “investigators” could not prove a single illegal transaction too place; the 244,000 figure is absurdly speculative, assuming that every transaction that takes place is illegal.

“Unlicensed sellers of firearms are flooding the Internet with weapons,” Bloomberg said at City Hall news conference.

Here, let me flood the internet with a weapon.

It’s the most curious thing: it remains only in pixel form. It’s harmless. And that is what Bloomberg dare not admit: advertising on Armslist or anywhere else is just advertising.

Firearms transactions do not take place on the Internet. They take place in the real world, where all the same laws, rules, and regulations apply. They cannot be shipped from person to person. EVER. Period. End of story.

What Bloomberg is really ticked off about is that you can advertise legal products for sale. It really is that simple.

“The result is a massive online, largely unregulated, secondhand firearms market that threatens the safety of all of us.”

The market for firearms is larger that it has been before simply due to interest; more people shoot now than ever before, and there are more Americans with firearms than there has been before at any point in our history. From the time our nation was founded until now, there has always been a legal right to take out ads or post flyers to sell your own firearms to other law-abiding citizens.

But there is no “online firearms market.” You cannot buy and sell weapons over the Internet.

You can arrange to have a firearm shipped to an FFL (who will then perform a NICS background check before allowing you to take posession), or you make sell a firearm to another person, in person. That’s it.

What Bloomberg is complaining about is that the Internet allows free speech about the buying and selling of firearms.

Why are we not surprised that a person who hates the 2nd Amendment and the 4th Amendment (the NYPD’s unconstitutional “stop and frisk” program) also hates other parts of the Constitution and bill of rights, including the right to free speech?