Not completely true. I bought 2 XD handguns, a 1911 and an M1A directly from Springfield, at the national matches, Camp Perry OH. They did run a background check, of course, as required by federal law. Otherwise, his claim is complete nonsense - as usual.
chances are that was through a distributor or dealer for Springfield armory. I know that at the ATA Grand American, you can buy a Perazzi shotgun through Perazzi USA but IIRC they had a FFL license for that state since there was a permanent building on the ATA grounds at they had a DBA that held the license.
meaning SA had established a retail DBA in that area with an FFL in that state. generally to sell handguns to a resident of say Ohio (at the national matches) they have to have an FFL issued to an Ohio entity. In Southern Ohio gun shows, a KY licensee cannot sell handguns to an Ohio resident without going through an Ohio licensee. My wife wanted a custom built Ruger 1022 that a Kentucky licensee displayed at the Bill Goodman show in Sharonville Ohio Now she could have driven 2 hours to the dealer's store in Lexington and bought it in KY but she was able to buy it in Cincinnati because a local dealer I used to do legal work for accepted the transfer and had my wife fill out the form and complete the background check on his book-not the KY FFL