The overarching reason is that Abramski’s reading would undermine—indeed, for all important purposes,would virtually repeal—the gun law’s core provisions.[7] As noted earlier, the statute establishes an elaborate system to verify a would-be gun purchaser’s identity and check on his background. See supra, at 2. It also requires that the information so gathered go into a dealer’s permanent records. See supra, at 2–3. The twin goals of this comprehensive scheme are to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others who should not have them, and to assist law enforcement authorities in investigating serious crimes. See Huddleston, 415 U. S., at 824; supra, at 2–3. And no part of that scheme would work if the statute turned a blind eye to straw purchases—if, in other words,the law addressed not the substance of a transaction, but only empty formalities.
[fn7] That reading would also, at a stroke, declare unlawful a large part of what the ATF does to combat gun trafficking by criminals. See Dept.of Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, Following the Gun: Enforcing Federal Laws Against Firearms Traffickers, p. xi (June2000) (noting that in several prior years “[a]lmost half of all [ATF firearm] trafficking investigations involved straw purchasers”).
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And likewise, the statute’s record-keeping provisions would serve little purpose if the records kept were of nominal rather than real buyers. As noted earlier, dealers must store, and law enforcement officers may obtain,information about a gun buyer’s identity. See §§922(b)(5),923(g); supra, at 3. That information helps to fight serious crime. When police officers retrieve a gun at a crime scene, they can trace it to the buyer and consider him as a suspect. See National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc. v. Jones, 716 F. 3d 200, 204 (CADC 2013) (describing law enforcement’s use of firearm tracing). Too, the required records enable dealers to identify certain suspicious purchasing trends, which they then must report to federal authorities. See §923(g)(3) (imposing a reporting obligation when a person buys multiple handguns within five days). But once again, those provisions can serve their objective only if the records point to the person who took actual control of the gun(s). Otherwise, the police will at most learn the identity of an intermediary, who could not have been responsible for the gun’s use and might know next to nothing about the actual buyer. See, e.g., United States v. Juarez, 626 F. 3d 246, 249 (CA5 2010) (straw purchaser bought military-style assault rifles, later found among Mexican gang members, for a buyer known “only as ‘El Mano’”). Abramski’s view would thus render the required records close to useless for aiding law enforcement: Putting true numbskulls to one side, anyone purchasing a gun for criminal purposes would avoid leaving a paper trail by the simple expedient of hiring a straw.
, or (x). Please note: EXCEPTION: If you are picking up a repaired firearm(s) for another person, you are not required to answer 11.a. and may proceed to question 11.b.
