John Vines' Epic Fail on Gold and Silver Sales

Rep. John T. Vines of Hot Springs wrote a bill which he thought would ban the practice of "unregulated" gold and silver sales by and to these outfits that come through towns, by up as much gold as possible, and then move on. They are often called "road shows."  He wanted to force people to trade their silver and gold at pawn shops, or licensed gold and silver shops where they had to record information about their customers and report it to the government.  These travelling show would not be much of a threat if the pawn shops paid top dollar for gold and silver.  From here it looks like pawn shop interests are trying to regulate their competition out of business.

Well, it turns out the language of the bill does not do what Vines intended.   As long as the travelling gold and silver shows have a fixed address somewhere, even out of state, the show can go on!

As I read the bill, the language makes it illegal for one person in Arkansas to sell gold or silver to another without first registering as an "offical dealer" and keeping records of who you are selling it to.   If I am short of cash one week and my buddy Josh buys 10 ounces of silver off me for $400 and a month later I buy it back for $400 or spot (whichever is higher) then we both broke Rep. Vines' Epic Fail "Law."

Vines did not even make our 10 Worst Legislators list. I can't remember if I put him on it but so low that he did not make the final list because others did not give him enough votes, or whether their were just too many bad ones to make room for him. Just like their are more than 10 good legislators and some got left off that list, there are some poor ones that were left off the bottom ten list.