Resale Roundup: Coming Soon to Your Town!

I warned you about the dangers of getting busted for selling untested, unlabeled toys at the beginning of yard sale season. I even provided a handy link to Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) Publication #254 [PDF], with guidelines explaining that most of the stuff you'd naturally sell at a flea market or yard sale was technically verboten, thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). 

And yet, today's Morning Links and Drudge Report links to an article which suggests all of you have failed to do the supplementary reading in the rest of the CPSC's publications:

As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the secondhand sales of dangerous and defective products.

The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that's been recalled by its manufacturer.

The Feds are trolling for contraband items at Goodwill, on eBay, and at church bazaars. It's a shame really. "Resale Roundup" sounds like something fun, maybe a western-themed version of Antiques Roadshow. But no luck. Reality is far bleaker:

[Jim Gibbons, the chief executive of Goodwill], said the nonprofit group was accustomed to inspectors from the Consumer Product Safety Commission making unannounced visits to its stores.

Read Reason's archive about the land of forbidden toys here.