re: Help me out here. Are background checks required for rifles?

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I thought you lost like 10 guns in Katrina and you own a Colt Delta Elite... Where did you get them all? You've really only purchased one gun through a dealer in your life?

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This is all honest questions and not me being a dick at all. Background checks go for every firearms transaction.

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No problem here. I don't take it as you being a dick. I have told my stories about losing my guns so I can see where someone might be confused as to why I was uninformed of the background process.

My father died when I was 14. I became the owner of over 70 guns at that point as they were all left to me in his will, with the exception of a Walther PPK .380 left to my Mom. Over the years I sold off many of the guns that I had no real connection to or had sentimental value to me. When Katrina hit, I had 19 of his guns remaining. 16 of them were in a safe in my garage in Slidell, LA. All 16 of those were deemed to be as unsalvageable by 3 different gunsmiths. They had spent nearly 4 weeks after Katrina in a carpet-lined safe that went under 5 ft of flood waters. The combination of the saltwater wet carpet and 100 degree heat in early September caused severe pitting in the breaches and inside the barrels also. All of the long-gun's stocks were swollen and cracking. The revolvers were pitting around the barrel opening at the cylinder and the cylinders were all pitting inside. The feed ramps on the semi-autos were pitting as well as the barrels.

Anyway, I lost 16 guns in Katrina (see pic below). 3 survived due to 1 being on my hip (The Delta Elite) the entire time I was riding out the storm. Two others were in their own hard-cases which I had put on top of my bed before the storm. The bed floated up and down in the flood waters and everything on top of it was saved.

So before Katrina, I never had a need or a want to purchase a new gun. Since Katrina, I have only purchased one gun, a pistol, my XD9 that I bought in 2006.

I could swear that when the Brady Bill was enacted that only handguns were subject to background checks. But, it looks like I was mistaken on that.