Question on Transferring Firearm across state lines

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If you know which states have such a requirement, please post the list so I'll know which states not to consider for retirement.
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Clark county Nv (where Las Vegas is) mandates registration of all handguns in the county. If you move into the Co you go down WITH your handguns and are issued a "blue card" that must be kept with the gun and presented upon demand.
 
sweet!!

I didnt live in Clark co but spent a lot of time there. Ive been asked for my "blue card" a cpl times and got funny looks when i said i didnt have one:cool:
 
Aquilla Bianca: I apologize for answering this in an off the cuff manner. Just off the top of my head, NY, MA, RI, HI, MD, DC, CT, register pistols. As a resident of the area that's who I am most familiar with. As with any other states I would look up their laws before I moved to that state.

Caveat: internet forums are not good places to get legal advice.
 
Handgun purchases are 'registered' in Washington state. The FFL completes a state form similar to the federal 4473, you sign it, and it gets mailed off.

Long arms are not tracked on purchase by the state, unless you buy two or more in one transaction, then the same state form as for the pistol purchase is completed and mailed out.

With the new I-594 law mandating all private sales go through an FFL, we now have de facto registration of handguns by the state, just tracking purchases.
 
kilimanjaro said:
Handgun purchases are 'registered' in Washington state. The FFL completes a state form similar to the federal 4473, you sign it, and it gets mailed off.
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There is no firearm registration in Washington state, not even handguns. There is a form for all handguns transferred by FFLs that is faxed to the local law enforcement agency, but they're not allowed to use that to produce a handgun registry.

Now, you might argue that they could keep those records and use them for a de facto registry, but that registry would be illegal under state law. I know for a fact that at least a few law enforcement agencies destroy those handgun forms, so a illegal handgun registry would be incomplete at best. And I don't see how that information could be used against you in court anyway considering it would be illegal.

kilimanjaro said:
With the new I-594 law mandating all private sales go through an FFL, we now have de facto registration of handguns by the state, just tracking purchases.
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I-594 didn't change anything other than the fact that private transfers are now performed by FFLs just like the gun was being sold by the FFL.
 
I know for a fact that neither Connecticut nor Pennsylvania "register" pistols -- not for current owners who move into the state, which is the topic of this discussion. I'm pretty certain that Rhode Island doesn't either.

Pennsylvania's oft-referred-to "registry" is not a registry. The PA courts have ruled that it's a database, not a registry, precisely because it is incomplete. NEW sales through FFLs are reported to the PA State Police and entered into a database. That's it. Anyone can move into PA with fifty handguns in a box, and there's no requirement to register them upon establishing residence.

CT has a similar system. Unlike NY, neither CT nor PA has any requirement to list on your carry permit/license what firearm(s) you may carry.
 
I stand corrected and will no longer offer information of which I am not fully confident. My apologies.
BTW, I don't think I mentioned PA.
 
JimPage said:
BTW, I don't think I mentioned PA.
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Correct, you didn't. I mentioned it, because I understand their "registry that's not a registry because it's only a database" and the problems it causes for folks who get stopped by a police officer who insists on running the serial number of their handgun through "the registry" and then confiscates the gun when it's not found.

I also have a Connecticut carry permit and friends in Connecticut, so I used PA to cue up the introduction of CT, since the two systems seem to operate in similar (and similarly incomplete) fashion.
 
WA has an incomplete record of handguns transferred in state. That's not the same thing as a registry.

Sure, you can submit a form like that if you want, but not all law enforcement agencies keep that information.

By your logic, all firearms in the US are registered because the 4473 contains the information needed to link that firearm to you.
 
kilimanjaro said:
Theo, take a look at this state form and tell us handgun purchases in Washington aren't registered.


http://www.dol.wa.gov/business/firea...ing/652012.pdf

Any LEO can submit one of these to find out what you've bought through an FFL. With I594, that means all handgun purchases going forward from passage.

We can all split hairs about purchases vs. ownership, but it's still registration.
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According to the PA Supreme Court it's not "registration." That's the same system in place in PA, and when the legality of the [ahem] "database" was challenged in court, the court ruled that because there's no retroactive requirement to register previously owned handguns or handguns brought in legally from other states (such as when someone moves into PA), the system isn't a "registration" scheme, it's merely an incomplete database.

Sadly, the judges don't seem to take cognizance of the many police officers around the state who persist in checking firearm serial numbers against the [not a] "registry" when conducting things like routine traffic stops.

A rose is a rose and a thorn is a thorn. I'm not a lawyer, and to me a "list of gun owners and their guns" seems an awful lot like a registration.
 
kilimanjaro said:
Theo, take a look at this state form and tell us handgun purchases in Washington aren't registered.
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Do I like the fact that the state tries to keep a list of handgun transactions? No, I don't. But I wouldn't consider it registration for the following reasons:

1) Any guns brought into the state when people move here aren't on that list.

2) Some police departments don't keep the pistol transfer paperwork that's faxed to them, so guns transferred by residents from that jurisdiction aren't on that list.

3) Pistols originally transferred as receivers aren't on that list.

4) If you own a handgun that's not on that list, there's no requirement to put it there.

WA simply has an incomplete database of pistol transfers. But so does the federal government: They have a database of pistols and their owners if that pistol was purchased within 5 days of another pistol from the same dealer.

So if you've ever bought more than one handgun from the same dealer within 5 days, the federal government probably has a record of that handgun along with your personal information. But you don't see people claiming that the federal government has handgun registration, because that list is incomplete and it only covers some pistol transfers, just like in WA.
 
Let's not split the hair. A database of handgun purchases, even an incomplete one, is registration. Get a restraining order against you, and you are going to have to answer for every item on the list, as well as lose the ones that aren't on the list.

Yes, 'true' registration is about possession and title, not purchases. Can't have one database without the other.
 
kilimanjaro said:
Let's not split the hair. A database of handgun purchases, even an incomplete one, is registration
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So you're saying that the federal government registers handguns? Because they also keep an incomplete database of handgun purchases.

kilimanjaro said:
Get a restraining order against you, and you are going to have to answer for every item on the list, as well as lose the ones that aren't on the list.
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OK, now you're being ridiculous. No, you won't have to answer for every item on that list. And no, you won't have to get rid of any ones that aren't on that list. And that's because the list is simply an incomplete handgun purchase record, it is not a handgun registration list: If you have a pistol that's not on that list (and many people do, I have several), there is zero requirement to add it to that list. And that's why it's not true registration.
 
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