Are your guns "registered"?

H

hogdogs

Staff In Memoriam
I don't mean full auto or short barrel shotguns and rifles... I mean regular everyday OTC purchased weapons. If you filled out the yellow piece of paper it is registered with the federal government.
How do I know? A little city PD was able to get a copy of the form complete with a copy of the register tape from "Service Merchandise". I suffered a burglary and the only gun that made it's way home was the one I had bought after batf started the "registering" of guns bought and sold through dealers etc.
I had moved 3 times from the time I had purchased the gun until I got the letter from them saying they had some property possibly belonging to me. I am sure some do not want to see that they are registered but they surely are.
Brent
 
Thats why I only buy my guns in black alleys while I wear my all black Ninja Stealth Hoodie. I also usually wear my Optimus Prime helmet that changes my voice into a cool Autobot voice. Unless mom hasn't bought me fresh batteries for the helmet, that is.


Whatever! If a little local PD is sophisticated enough to track someone down after three moves, then the feds can certainly ascertain that all of us here on these gun message boards have lots of guns.

You can't claim to be 'off the radar' if you are posting online, John Connor.
 
I don't claim to fly under the radar... Actually the best cover is NO COVER in this case... I just live right and don't push my luck. I do intend to make some fully legal undocumented gun purchases JIC. I do insist the seller let me write down the serial number and I have a deputy run it to see if it is hot. Can't have enough of them guns.
My point is that many people think the "background" check is all that document is used for. I have been told by guys with more gun buying experience than myself that the USA does not register regular guns...
Brent
 
"If you filled out the yellow piece of paper it is registered with the federal government. "

No it is not.
Given a serial number, BATFE can go to the manufacturer and folow it to the place of first retail sale.

They cannot take you name and find what you purchased without searching the 4473 forms.
They only have the ones that are less than 20 years old from FFLs who went out of business.
All the other forms are held by the FFL until they are 20 years old.

To find what you purchased would require every FFL to examine his records to see of you purchased anything.
 
Spaceman,
I buy all my "back alley" guns wearing my old BDU's but with enlisted ensigna instead of my captians bars. get better prices that way and dont scare off the sellers like the ninja garb does.
:)
 
I bought a number of handguns from an estate sale some years ago and I
KNOW they are registered. Of course the guy they are registered to died in 1990.
 
Brickeyee, Thanks for clearing that up! You also touched on something I had no idea of... the OOB FFL. This gun was bought from Service Merchandise and they shortly after went under... I do apolagize for assuming it was the case with all transactions.
Brent
 
IIRC in WA State the DOL has the 411 on pistols.. so I'd have to say, YEP in WA State, if not purchased via private transaction...
Click to expand...

Partly true. It is not the DOL but the Washington State Patrol who has the records on a database. All LEOs in the state have access to that database.
 
In Michigan , when you buy a handgun it must be taken back to the police station that issued a permit to buy and the gun has to have a safety inspection. The serial numbers are registered with the Michigan State Police. I don't know if they are then sent on to the Federal authorities. The same is true if you have a CCw permit.
 
In NY they know everything.....


SHHHH....they are watching me right now....
:D

Long story short: I have a good friend who's father had a very hard to come by CCW in NYC and was a police trainer for decades. He retired, sold his handguns to his son upstate who legally added them to his permit in Weschester.

Two days after my friend's father's CCW permit expired the SI police came and searched his house from top to bottom looking for the handguns. After much explanation and discussion they finally understood that they had been sold - they made a phone call to the database and ...lo and behold...they already had record that his son was now the rightful owner.

all ended well, but it was still unnerving that they came in the manner that they did.
 
In Michigan, they claim there is not handgun registration but we are required to do a "safety inspection".

You know, where they take down the serial number. :rolleyes:

What a joke.
 
About five years ago I watched a story on how tighter controls were putting small FFL dealers out of buisness. As you know, when an FFL goes under, the records are to be sent back "to the government."

What was funny about the story was that in many cases, a single box was returned. Along with it was a letter stating, "Enclosed please find what's left of my records. I used to store them in an old shed behind my house, and it caught fire..."

The agent opened the box for the camera, and it was filled with ashes.

He then took down another single box, and it had a letter that began, "I used to store records in an old shed behind my house..."

That box was also filled with ashes.

Nobody is fooling anybody, but then again, no one can prove anything either.
 
"If you filled out the yellow piece of paper it is registered with the federal government. "

No it is not.
Given a serial number, BATFE can go to the manufacturer and folow it to the place of first retail sale.

They cannot take you name and find what you purchased without searching the 4473 forms.
They only have the ones that are less than 20 years old from FFLs who went out of business.
All the other forms are held by the FFL until they are 20 years old.

To find what you purchased would require every FFL to examine his records to see of you purchased anything.
brickeyee is offline
Click to expand...

call it what you want....
Its a paper trail......its system of tracking that is enforced by the Govt...
...= its an estabilished registered system

What exactly will stop the BATF from checking 4473 forms again???
Oh the law....oh yeah that:rolleyes:

(and I'm getting all of my Social Security money too)
 
"What exactly will stop the BATF from checking 4473 forms again???"

So BATFE is going to contact every FFL in the US and have them check to see if Joe Blow purchased a firearm?
The tracking only works ONE way.
With a serial number from manufacturer through the distribution chain to point of first sale.
After that it gets just about impossible to track further.
If you sold the gun back to a different dealer BATFE has NO way of finding out short of checking the records of every FFL in the country.
And if the record is more than 20 years old the FFL can even dispose of it.
Now they have to go through the bound book to try and find it.

If you sold the gun in a private sale in most states the record gets even colder.

I am not a big fan of any of this either, but it is NOT a registration system.
Some states (as noted above) DO maintain registration systems.
 
OMG!:eek: That means they know about the Ruger 10/22 I bought five years ago, took on a canoe trip, tipped over and is some place between the upper Gila Valley and Arizona border. Gee Hope they find it!:D
 
If you filled out the yellow piece of paper it is registered with the federal government.
Click to expand...

Wrong. People need to seriously think twice before posting, or ask before making a statement of certainty without being certain.

A few years ago, I traded a rifle for a handgun at a gun shop. A few months later the rifle was used in a crime. The ATF contacted the original gun shop that the firearm was ORIGINALLY sold...The reason they got a hold of the original shop was because they had to go through the manufactuer, and the original sale is all the manufactuer keeps track of. The manufactuer told the ATF the name and number of the shop it was sold for the first time. The shop gave the ATF my contact info off of the form. The ATF got a hold of me, I gave the ATF the contact info of the second shop (the one I made the trade with). The ATF got a hold of the shop, the shop gave the ATF the contact info of the person that bought the rifle. The person that bought the rifle sold it in a private sale...and thats where the buck stops... Since the person did not keep a paper trail, or any contact info, or ID info from the purchaser the bad guy cannot be tracked.

Which should be a learning point to everyone here...KEEP A DANG PAPER TRAIL!
 
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