I have a couple of easy and obvious issues to today's rant...

First is that n-o-b-o-d-y calls it a "letter of authenticity", pretty much everyone calls it a Factory Letter and has been calling it as such for as long as I can recall.

Second issue is that even if you found some magical group of extreme authority that had to ability to authenticate a handgun... you simply must realize that unless/until you then MARK it with an indentifier from that entity, the entire exercise is moot.

When a collectible baseball card is authenticated, it is sealed in a display case that has a trackable code and damn difficult to counterfeit identifier on it, typically a hologram of some nature, that ties the authenticating organization to the actual physical item.

So then, with a handgun, would you like it SEALED and thus forever here after untouchable? Or would you rather engrave it? Etch it?

Better answer...
Let's just keep on keepin' on as we did yesterday before this crisis.