Multiple Handgun Purchase

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Painterman121212

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Multiple Handgun Form

OK, so I don't normally buy a lot of guns at once, in fact it's rare. But I'm moving to NC in a couple weeks and you have to actually buy permits to get a gun whereas in South Carolina you just need your license.

So I went into a "chain store" with multiple locations a few days ago and bought multiple handguns. Didn't really think anything of it.

I got 5% off of list price and I personally thought I should've gotten more! So in the process of Googling about what kind of a discount should I have received for a $3500 purchase, an off reference link came up about some ATF form requiring all FFL dealers to fill it out and send it to the ATF when buying 2 or more at the same time.

That's kind of pissed me off because I thought it should've been mentioned to me and in fact I was quite irate that nobody did mention it to me.

Not that I'm doing anything illegal, but it's the principle of the matter. A man should be able to buy a few guns and not have set off fireworks drawing attention to my purchase that automatically labels me as anything other than I am, someone trying to buy a few guns before I move!!!

In short it's nobody's damn business!!!

But that's not the purpose of this post. The purpose of this post is I called the guy back up to raise hell and the guy was like "Huh? What form? We don't report anything like that? I've never heard of any such form?"

Now he is the one that filled out all the paperwork for me and put all the purchases on one form. He then went and asked somebody else and they had never heard of it either.

For kicks, I called another one of their locations in the same city and asked the same question, if I buy multiple handguns do you have to fill out this form? His reply? What form?

Seeing as this is a chain and not some mommy and daddy outfit, I can't help but speculate this has to be a common body of knowledge by this point and these people have to be aware of this law, as I'm sure corporate does some kind of a training.

What am I missing here? Are they the most ignorant people on earth, or are they just refusing to do so because it's not mandatory, or am I reading my research wrong that I have just spent over an hour on, reading every possible article I could, saying they have to??!

Enlighten me someone!
 
Seeing as this is a chain and not some mommy and daddy outfit, I can't help but speculate this has to be a common body of knowledge by this point and these people have to be aware of this law, as I'm sure corporate does some kind of a training.
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The guy doing the selling was probably stocking the women's swim apparel shelf last week.
Corporate training probably consists of a manager showing the new employee how to "face off" the stock on the shelves.

But --yeah - ATF Form 3310.4 (more than two handguns w/in a 5 day span) has been around for a few years now.
 
But I'm moving to NC in a couple weeks and you have to actually buy permits to get a gun whereas in South Carolina you just need your license.
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Once you get your NC concealed carry permit you won't need a separate purchase permit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_North_Carolina
NC Pistol Purchase Permit law[edit]
Currently, in order to buy a handgun, whether from a licensed dealer or a private individual, North Carolinians are required to either A) obtain and present a pistol purchase permit from the sheriff of the county in which they reside, or B) obtain and present a North Carolina Concealed Handgun Permit. Before issuing a purchase permit, the sheriff's office will subject the applicant to a background check. Concealed Handgun Permits require satisfactory completion of an 8-hour handgun safety course, background check, and completion of the CHP application process.
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Painterman121212 said:
In short it's nobody's damn business!!!
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I agree but you'll find the government doesn't share that view. On the plus side, I thought I heard somewhere that President Trump ordered all Federal agencies to get rid of 2 regulations for every one they adopt. This may help a little, at least temporarily, for making your business not the government's business.
 
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Multiple sales/reports to ATF are quite common and from what I know, based on what dealers have told me, the ATF takes such things in stride.

What raises the "red flag" particularly is multiple sales of what might be called "street guns."

I know that the definition of "street guns" will raise all sorts of questions and that I won't get into.

As to the ATF rule/practice, as far as I know it dates back to the 1970s.
 
What purpose this form/report serves is "above my pay grade", but I imagine that the box store will be educated by ATF on the issue when their FFL license comes up for renewal.

Such was the case for my small gunsmith. A few years ago, I bought a lot of 3 older, small caliber revolvers (Iver Johnson top break, Hopkins & Allen, etc) & he forgot to file the form on my purchase. He called me about a year later to let me know about filing the belated form. He mentioned that the ATF staff wrote him up for this gap in his records, but he did get his FFL renewal.
 
Thanks guys, excellent answers. So I am not insane and they are evidently doing something wrong!

Obviously I don't want to call up and push the issue as I may make them report a form on me that's not going to be reported!!! Which is always a wonderful thing :)

Lord knows I don't want to call up and continue to scream about something if they've had no idea about that something to begin with ;)
 
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Couldn't figure out how to quote in a post
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Copy the text you want to quote into your clipboard, then on your post use the icon that looks like a cartoon bubble to create quote tags, and paste the text you copied between them.
 
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Thanks guys, excellent answers. So I am not insane...
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Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. :D

Naw. Just teasing. Welcome to TFL. It's totally amazing the amount of information available here, the willingness of folk to explain stuff with pictures showing what they mean and the generally civil attitude. (Thanks for that mods).

Have a look around and you'll see what a great place this is.
 
I bought two revolvers from the same dealer in the same transaction here in NJ back in 1990. I suppose I went on a list somewhere, but I haven't had anyone knocking on my door or talking to my neighbors, etc.
 
In the last 5 years or so I have bought two or more handguns at the same time on several occasions. I don't have a clue as to if my dealer submitted an ATF Form 3310.4 or not, but I do know I filled out no more paperwork than when purchasing a single handgun.
 
The dealer's reporting requirements are not your problem.

The ATF is looking for patterns, that could indicate illegal acts. Buy a dozen at the same time, once, no big deal, buy a dozen every month, that gets attention. And, for good reason.

As to it being nobody's business what you buy, and how much, sorry, not when it comes to firearms.

Since 1968, when firearms dealers were required to get Federal Licenses, (and dealing in firearms without one became a crime) it IS THEIR BUSINESS. By law.
 
The requirement is for a good reason. Gun runners buying multiple guns in states with no license requirement and selling them on the street at inflated prices in other states. A person with a clean record buying multiple guns for his buddies that cannot legally purchase guns etc.

In your case buying multiple guns will result in an investigation. You may, or may not get a visit from an ATF agent. Probably not, but someone will look into your background. As long as you don't fit the profile of one of the above it won't be a problem.

I've bought multiple guns before, but in order to limit red flags paid for both at the same time, but filled out the paper work on and took possesion of one of them a week later.
 
but in order to limit red flags paid for both at the same time, but filled out the paper work on and took possesion of one of them a week later.
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I'm thinking that doing that for the purpose of bypassing the multiple gun purchase form is in itself illegal.
From the ATF:
The sale or disposition of two or more handguns must be reported if they occur at the same time, or within five consecutive business days of each other.

Jim
 
They're looking for trends. Your one multiple gun purchase probably won't get much if any attention. However, if in two weeks you went and bought the same two guns (or same type) of guns they might red flag you...and just keep an eye on your firearm purchases for a while. But unless you're buying guns left and right, it's unlikely anything is going to happen to you.

It's not really different from the two federal forms someone has to fill out for certain financial transactions.

It's been a while since I did this job, but I used to work at a payday loan company and we also did money transfers and money orders. If someone came in and transferred $1k within one day (or did something like $900 one day and $100 the next) I had to report those money transfers to the government. It was mostly to detect fraud. We literally had a customer who tried to send $5k over five days to Nigeria (we didn't do a single transfer, but got calls from other places that did money transfers asking about him). We had to ban him from doing money transfers at our stores because we felt he was being defrauded and we could be held liable for it if we kept doing the transfers. And no, we weren't allowed to tell the customer about the report.
 
laytonj1
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but in order to limit red flags paid for both at the same time, but filled out the paper work on and took possesion of one of them a week later.
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I'm thinking that doing that for the purpose of bypassing the multiple gun purchase form is in itself illegal.
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Not at all illegal.


From the ATF:
The sale or disposition of two or more handguns must be reported if they occur at the same time, or within five consecutive business days of each other.
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ATF considers the terms sale, transfer & disposition as having essentially the same meaning. As long as the buyer did not acquire the two handguns within that five day period, no reporting of a multiple sale is required.
 
Painterman121212 said:
So in the process of Googling about what kind of a discount should I have received for a $3500 purchase, an off reference link came up about some ATF form requiring all FFL dealers to fill it out and send it to the ATF when buying 2 or more at the same time.

That's kind of pissed me off because I thought it should've been mentioned to me and in fact I was quite irate that nobody did mention it to me.
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There is all sorts of behind-the-scenes paperwork required to run an FFL. The only paperwork that involves the customer directly are 4473s, Form 4s, and any state transfer paperwork that might be required. I generally don't mention multiple pistol forms to customers, or Form 2s, or the various bound books, or the status of our FFL and SOT.

Over the last five years I've managed at two different FFLs and helped a friend out at a third, and I never felt an obligation to inform a customer of the specific requirements of the multiple pistol form. It's not a form that needs to involve the customer; I focus on making sure I get the 4473 and the state pistol form correct and that I enter the correct information for the background check.

Painterman121212 said:
For kicks, I called another one of their locations in the same city and asked the same question, if I buy multiple handguns do you have to fill out this form? His reply? What form?
[...]
What am I missing here? Are they the most ignorant people on earth, or are they just refusing to do so because it's not mandatory, or am I reading my research wrong that I have just spent over an hour on, reading every possible article I could, saying they have to??!
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You're completely off-base here. At many FFLs, the customer-facing employees don't fill out the multiple pistol forms. They often might not even know they exist. At the first FFL I worked at, I was extremely well-versed in the specific requirements of customer-facing firearm sales and I even became a manager, but I never once saw a multiple pistol form. It was something our back-office paperwork person filled out at the end of the day. We sales floor people had no involvement in that kind of paperwork at all.

It's not surprising to me that nobody you talked to knew about the multiple pistol form. If you call a random gun shop salesman and ask them what FFL type the shop has and they don't know the answer, that doesn't mean the shop doesn't have an FFL, it just means that employee isn't knowledgeable about the back-office details.

Thanks guys, excellent answers. So I am not insane and they are evidently doing something wrong!
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You're not insane, but you're drawing a completely wrong conclusion here. There's absolutely no way that a gun shop chain doesn't know about multiple pistol forms; obviously the salesmen you talked to aren't responsible for filling those forms out so they might not know about them. But it's ridiculous to conclude that because a salesman doesn't know about those forms it means the back office doesn't either.
 
Don't lose sleep over it.

I've been on the "multiple purchases" lists before, too. (As have many members, here. -- There's a 'multiple long gun purchases' requirement in some states, too. :rolleyes:)


As long as you're not committing a crime, you'll be fine.

A few years back, I transferred three handguns in a day, and two more within the next week -- from the same dealer.
Two months later, I picked up a bushel of AR lower receivers (seven, I think), followed by two rifles and another AR lower receiver, within the same week. Again, same dealer.

I know the forms were filed, as required by ATF regulation. But I never got so much as a phone call or strange car on the street.

Live your life.
Don't worry about it.

For the most part, the ATF is on our side.
 
Big chain stores follow the laws to the letter and usually have their own stuff on top of it. If you buy off Buds Guns and it goes to a FFL in my state there is no sales tax, free shipping, and he only charges a $10 transfer fee. With my CCW there is no need to call it in either. Each state is different.
Saved me over 5% right there.:D
 
I got 5% off of list price and I personally thought I should've gotten more! So in the process of Googling about what kind of a discount should I have received for a $3500 purchase, an off reference link came up about some ATF form requiring all FFL dealers to fill it out and send it to the ATF when buying 2 or more at the same time.

That's kind of pissed me off because I thought it should've been mentioned to me and in fact I was quite irate that nobody did mention it to me.

Not that I'm doing anything illegal, but it's the principle of the matter. A man should be able to buy a few guns and not have set off fireworks drawing attention to my purchase that automatically labels me as anything other than I am, someone trying to buy a few guns before I move!!!
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter what YOU THINK OR FEEL. Take your complaints to the BATFE, noting my emphasis. Their rules, their game
 
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