A Reddit user said he thought he had a pretty normal private sale lined up. He wrote that he was selling a rifle, a buyer texted saying he was interested, and the two of them even set a day and time to meet. Up to that point, nothing sounded especially unusual. It read like the kind of deal that happens every day when somebody is trying to move one gun so they can fund the next one.
Then the buyer sent the message that made the whole thing go sideways. According to the post, the man asked the seller to send over a copy of his driver’s license ahead of time so he could “check my record” before buying. The poster’s reaction was immediate. He wrote, “uhhhh no,” and said he had never been asked for that before. He also said he was not comfortable doing it, which is really where the story took shape. It was no longer about a sale. It was about the moment a routine transaction suddenly started feeling wrong.
The seller said he tried to keep it reasonable instead of blowing the whole thing up right away. He responded that the FFL handling the transfer would take both of their IDs, so there was no reason for him to send his license in advance. He even added that if the buyer needed more reassurance, he would be willing to go to the exact FFL where he had picked up his own firearms so they could confirm he had passed a background check. But even with that offer on the table, he still clearly felt like something was off.
That is what made the thread click with so many people. The post was not written like some dramatic standoff. It was more like a guy hitting the brakes on a deal because one request crossed a line he did not expect. He asked the subreddit whether anyone else had ever been asked for ID before, and the answers came in fast. A lot of them were not subtle. One of the first replies flatly said, “That’s a no from me dawg.” Another said it sounded like a scam. Another told him to block the buyer and move on.
The scam angle came up over and over in the comments, and that was probably the most interesting part of the whole thread. One commenter warned that scammers sometimes collect other people’s IDs and then use them to set up fake GunBroker accounts or to convince future victims they are legitimate. Another pointed out a similar pattern where scammers ask for fresh photos of a gun next to a username, then use those same photos to rip off other people later. In other words, the commenters were not just reacting to a weird request. They were seeing it as part of a larger pattern they already recognized.
The original poster seemed to come to the same conclusion pretty quickly. In one reply, after a commenter raised the scam possibility, he answered that the buyer either needed to buy the gun under normal terms or “fuck off.” In another exchange, he confirmed he had been selling on Armslist and said the buyer had even used a local-looking area code, managed to set up a date and time, and only then asked for the ID. That little detail made it feel even sketchier, because the request did not come at the beginning like some cautious but awkward buyer trying to feel things out. It came after the deal had already started to feel real.
A few commenters did say they had seen ID requests in some situations, but usually not like this. One person said he had asked for copies of IDs in the past for his own records, though that set off a whole side argument in the thread about whether any law actually required that. Another commenter said he might ask for a partial ID with most of the information blurred out. But even those replies did not really change the tone of the conversation. The overall mood stayed the same: sending a full driver’s license to a stranger ahead of a private gun deal was a bad idea.
There was also a more personal concern buried in the thread that a lot of people picked up on. One commenter said he would never send anything with a home address on it. The original poster agreed immediately. That gets at why the post worked so well. It was not only about identity theft or some abstract scam risk. It was about handing a stranger your full name, address, and personal information before meeting to transfer a firearm. For a lot of gun owners, that is enough by itself to kill the deal.
In the edit to the post, the seller added one more detail that made the whole thing feel a little more frustrating. He said he was selling a new SCAR 16s to get another gun, then added, “I guess I won’t be selling today.” That line kind of summed up the whole thread. He had gone in expecting a straightforward sale, hit one strange request, and suddenly had to rethink the whole thing because the buyer no longer felt like just a buyer. He felt like a risk.
Original Reddit post: “Selling a gun and the buyer asks I send him my ID?” on r/guns.
What do you think — would a request like that immediately kill the deal for you, or is there any version of a private sale where asking for ID in advance would not feel sketchy?
