Questions about 4473s

G

Gopher a 45

New member
I was just curious about how the form 4473s work in practice. I know that the form 4473s are supposed to be kept on site, but what are the requirements for a FFL dealer for keeping these in terms of storage? Are they just stuck in a filing cabinet or something? I ask because I'm sure that more than one gun shop has caught fire over the years. I wouldn't want to be the FD on that one! Would the shop owner then be prosecuted? Or is there a requirement for them to be stored in a fireproof container? Do individual forms get lost sometimes, and of so, how would BATF know without some sort of permanent record in their possession? Doesn't BATF lose NFA records fairly often? Also, what happens to the 4473s if the store goes out of business? Does the ATF then take them and is that legal? I know that there was some incident a while back of ATF agents supposedly barging into a shop and copying the 4473s. Is that true to anyone's knowledge? It just seems like there's a lot of room for mistakes/abuses in this system. Does the FBI still keep NICS records for "only six months" or were they successfully forced to stop that practice and if they weren't how would anyone know about it?

John

P.S. Anyone remember the movie Red Dawn? I'm thinking of the scene where the Castro-esque Cuban Colonel tells his aide to go to the local gun shop and look on all the little yellow forms to see who in the town owns a gun. I heard the scriptwriter got blackballed for that one.
 
Gopher:

You might be able to find answers to some of your question at www.atf.treas.gov/
In part: FFLs are required to keep a "bound book" in which they are to record all their sales so there would still be a record in the event the 4473s were lost or destroyed; When an FFL goes/is forced out of business or his license expires he must surrender the bound book and 4473s to the ATF; There is plenty of room for abuse in this whole system and you can bet if someone doesn't go to the FBI and destroy those records for them, they will keep them for a long time.

The above is my understanding of some of the regulations, they may vary slightly.

I do remember that scene from Red Dawn.

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If you're not a little upset with the way the world is going, you're not paying attention.
 
Form 4473 is clearly unconstitutional because it asks racist and sexist questions. It is strange that this does not upset the liberals in Congress.
 
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