Nestled in a white house near South Knoxville, Cary Wiedman presides over firearms transactions for customers that visit A-Zone Sports, the gun transfer business he has operated since 2012.

Though this job is part-time, Wiedman said his primary interest in firearms is rooted in the time he spent shooting .22 caliber pistols with his grandfather.

“I like guns because they are simple machines (and) I like the engineering behind them,” Wiedman said. “There’s only so many ways you can make a gun, so when someone does something innovative, you want to see what it is.”

In an eclectic living room of antique cameras, Wiedman meets clients, roughly 100 per year and organizes a pick-up for gun orders placed by online customers — a process he likens to a version of eBay for gun connoisseurs and salesmen.

“(It’s) just like someone who sells Beanie Babies would also sell stuff on eBay,” he said. “The only difference is the Beanie Babies go straight to a customer whereas a gun has to go through a dealer first.”

As a transfer point, Wiedman receives materials from gun distributors, after he confirms his license and receives the firearm shipment for a final sale. Following a successful background check, the A-Zone Sports owner completes the transaction.

These background checks are run through the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s database, referencing both national and state queries. All of this, Wiedman said, creates a “more effective” catch for flagged individuals.

Still, President Obama’s recent executive action on gun control is designed to place more regulations on these background checks, originally intended to prevent convicted felons from obtaining weapons.

The background check, officially known as a 4437 Form, is comprehensive in its questioning, covering immigrant status, criminal record and medical status or mental adjudication. But to Wiedman, it is easy to manipulate the survey’s “yes/no” response boxes, particularly for questions on the purchaser’s mental status.

“Even if we (did) conduct background checks for private sales, I don’t think that’s going to catch anything because they’re not going to go through the nice guy who does a background check,” Wiedman said. “You know, a criminal is a criminal.”

Still, the majority of his clients are firearm enthusiasts like himself, intrigued by gun variety and sportsmanship associated with their weapon of choice.

Four or five of those clients have included UT students.

“Typically (students) know what they’re looking for,” Wiedman said. “They’ve found what they’re looking for online and were raised around guns and are getting the first one to own for themselves.”

One such student is two-time transfer customer Joe White, fifth-year senior in BCMB, who, like Wiedman, honed his shooting skills at a young age.

“On a psychological level, I really like firearms — I like the way it feels when you shoot it, and I think it relieves stress,” White said.

After purchasing his first pistol at 21, White said his awareness of background checks heightened, yet he still doesn’t believe the presence of mass shootings as “isolated events” is not enough to warrant national action.

“I do see how to the public it seems like gun controls could prevent those situations, but I don’t think you can prevent crazy, to be completely honest,” White said.

In a recent press conference, President Obama announced mental health as a component to his executive actions, citing mass shootings in Newtown, Fort Hood, Aurora, Charleston, Santa Barbara and, more recently, in San Bernandino where a married couple opened fire at Inland Regional Center, killing 14 people.

The executive orders outlined three methods to reduce gun violence, including the addition of over 200 AFT agents, enhanced background checks focused mental health evaluations and government-funded sponsorship for gun safety technology.

White’s solution, however, only involves tightening the process of background checks by interjecting face-to-face interactions with TBI or other federal representatives to evaluate mental health.

“If you’re talking to someone in person, you may be able to pick up on body language or queues that is grounds to deny a weapon to someone,” he said.

As a single father, Wiedman said the most preventive measure is education on how handle the weapon with caution and care.

“I remember when (my daughter) was five, and she asked why I had a gun and I explained to her that I didn’t to ever harm anyone, but if someone wanted to hurt me or (her), I wanted to be able to stop them.”

Still, UT’s restrictions on firearms on campus remains a point of contention for the A-Zone Sports owner.

Per Tennessee law and the university’s Code of Conduct, it is a criminal offense to “carry or possess a firearm or other weapon, whether openly or concealed, on any property owned, used, or operated by the University of Tennessee.”

For Wiedman, this restriction impedes on constitutional rights that permits U.S. citizens the right to bear arms in all contexts, namely self-defense.

“There are certainly people, and I’m among them, who [think] that if a danger does come, the guy who has a legally possessed gun might be able to put a stop to it before the cops arrive,”Wiedman said.

But for UTPD Chief Troy Lane, such action is not advisable for those not trained as a police officer or first responder.

“The simple fact is that if we did have an active shooter on campus, there is no individual one this campus that has more training than we do to respond to that,” Lane said.

Lane, who oversaw a shooter preparedness seminar for students in response to a mass shooting in Oregon, said UT’s restriction on firearms do not undermine constitutional rights, but rather emphasize campus-wide safety for all — not just those with carrying permits.

The UTPD Chief also said a permit-carrying individual attempting to handle a shooter scenario creates more confusion for the responders, who are trained to look for a person holding a gun.

“We don’t really have the time to discern whether that’s a valid permit holder. We see someone with a gun, we will address that straight away.”

Though he acknowledges the merit of background checks, Lane also said a campus simply warrants different regulations as an environment for student life — even for a proponent of Second Amendment rights like himself.

“I’m a big gun guy myself and I would absolutely defend that right, but campus is just a different atmosphere — you’re dealing with a different demographic here.”