All 4473s are registration forms

[BC38]

Well, they are.

I call NICS with the 4473 in hand and answer the questions pertaining to name, place of birth, ethnicity, race, state of residence, type of firearm, and S.S. if provided. They in turn issue a transaction number that I fill in on line 21B as well as a disposition (proceed, delayed or denied.).

So, the FBI has a listing of these transaction numbers and they could theoretically be married to the 4473.

Thank you! Although you didn't mean to you just made my point. They collect info on the buyer from you BUT NOTHING SPECIFIC ABOUT THE GUN. They don't even ask for the serial number - just whether it is a long gun or a handgun. Unless and until they get their hands on that piece of paper they don't even have the buyer's address - just a name, a state of residence, and a transaction number.

If they got their hands on one of my guns and wanted to link it directly to me they can't just punch it into some computer somewhere and have it tell them my name. They have to get a court order, then go to the manufacturer and get the info about what FFL it was shipped to. Then they have to go to that FFL and look at the paper record to determine who they sold it to. If I bought it new from that FFL then they can look for me at the address I put on the form when I bought the gun. Maybe I still live there, maybe I don't. Maybe I have the gun, maybe I don't. Maybe I lost it in a boating accident, or sold it to someone I didn't know.

The ability for law enforcement to be able to follow this paper trail step by step and SOMETIMES be able to connect a criminal to a gun is the reason the old FFL records aren't destroyed. While a lot of these investigations hit a dead end somewhere along the way, some do actually allow them to connect a particular criminal to a particular gun. That is why they archive them. But it is a multi-step time-intensive process, not just a quick computer search.

The big picture here is that the ATF or even the FBI cannot look up a list of guns any of us own in some database - either by serial number OR by your name. The FBI can look up how many times an individual has had a background check to purchase a firearm from an FFL. But they can't tell you what any of those guns were without going to the FFLs and looking at the paper forms. Even the records of FFLs that have been surrendered aren't in a database - they also have to be searched by hand on microfiche viewers. By the way, ever use one of those? I have, searching newspaper and magazine articles for research in college. I can tell you they are not exactly what anybody would call a "registry" or a database.

This whole thread is about the OP - and some who have agreed with him - saying that the 4473 forms ARE (as in right now presently) a gun registration system. I'm saying they ARE NOT. Could they be used to create a registration database. YOU BET. Would it be a simple and easy thing for the ATF or FBI any other other agency to create one from them? NO IT WOULD NOT. Could they do it in secret - in direct contravention of the existing laws against it? NO WAY. They don't have the resources to do it, and if they tried, the number of people required to do it would mean they couldn't possibly keep it secret and not have it leak out. Not in the information age we live in and with that many people involved. Could they really do it without the cooperation of people voluntarily registering their guns? Heck no! There are HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of guns that have changed hands multiple times without the sale being recorded since they were purchased new, not to mention the hundreds of millions that existed prior to the GCA of 1968 that have never been handled by an FFL.

Now, if we want to talk about what COULD happen, or what could theoretically be done, then that would be an entirely different thread and conversation. It is definitely possible that they might somehow someday get laws passed to require us all to register every gun. And it is possible that if enough people knuckled under and voluntarily registered all their guns, then they'd have a good start at a gun registration database. But they'd have to start by requiring every gun owner to submit a 4473 (or similar form) for every gun they own. Then they'd need to follow that up with gathering up all of the existing 4473s from all of the FFL holders and hiring a small army of people to review and input all the data from all those forms into the database.

So far I haven't seen any evidence that this has happened. But some incremental steps have already been taken by some states. THESE laws are what we need to be focusing on and resisting. Allowing these incremental encroachments to stand, and allowing them to becoming more widespread are what we need to be focusing our energies on - in order to avoid universal registration becoming FACT instead of hype and paranoid hyperbole.

 

[Old TexMex]

You folks know what a "Demand Letter" is, right?

I say the first person to call another person "paranoid" loses!
In a debate that involves systems we know to be secretive, operated by persons we know to be untrustworthy ("...you can keep your doctor!")....how can we be so sure?
Dealing with an organization that did Fast and Furious, Tradewinds and others, the very idea that "getting a court order" is some sort of impediment is naïve...noble, but naïve.

So do I lose sleep over it? No. Does it effect my golf game? No, I don't play golf.
But I certainly don't pretend that the most powerful nation in the world does not have access to systems of which the average citizen is unaware.
And..I also don't pretend to know what they do in Washington State...but I do know what can and DOES happen in the "Border States". Even though the law doesn't allow it, the courts have said it's "within the purview...".

So don't put so much faith in the written....

 

[Old TexMex]

I Should be clearer, for those who don't know.
The Demand Letter 3 is used by ATF agents to visually inspect FFL records. I have been present more than a few times during these inspections/ interviews. The Demand Letter 3 is regarding long guns, higher caliber than .22 w/ detachable magazine. The only way I have ever seen these records checked is by an agent photographing page after page of the book.("we'll sort through them later"). These records include names and serial numbers and in spite what we have read in previous posts, this information IS permanently recorded, as it is intended to form a picture of behavior of INDIVIDUALS.
Documents: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations - CBS News

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/atf_investigation_01_111207.pdf
All perfectly "legal".

As for numbers, ATF shows searches by request processing numbers at 360,000 in 2014. That's about a thousand a day, with no days off.... So how does that square up with the opinion that the task (searchrigin to point of sale onward) is so massive that it can't be done? It doesn't square at all. There is no reason to assume that the small violations are what we need to be exclusively concerned with. Rather, the overarching big picture is that federal registration advocates are relying on "small wars" to divert attention and funding to local/ state gun rights issues while the federal efforts will trump all those anyway.
I'll have faith in the "process" when the process is executed honestly.

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

Congress mandated that ATF centralize out-of-business records of FFLs by establishing a records repository in 1986. The ATF receives over a million out-of-business gun records each month. So all that information the ATF already has. It's so much that it accounts for 30% of the traces they get at least one FFL is gone and the ATF has the info in-house at the NTC (National Tracing Center).

The NTC via "Access 2000" has online computer access to the records of manufacturers, importers and wholesalers. This isn't a secret, it's right on the ATF's website. With Access 2000, it can put the ATF on the front doorstep of the FFL the gun originally went to or have the data in-house with their own records. I read an article that says in 2012 the NTC got 344,000 tracing requests. 90% success rate. It's not just a needle in a haystack paper and pencil operation.

I don't understand the argument that the ATF can accept a million FFL out-of-business gun records each month and are able to put them on microfiche, but entering a few lines of information in a database from the 4473 is such an overwhelming and budget busting notion that it could only live in the minds of the "paranoid".

 

[ladder13]

So all those 4473's from defunct FFL's are just collecting dust?

 

[PALADIN85020]

1. It's the law - the 4473s are NOT to be entered into any kind of central federal database until such time as the FFL shop goes out of business and the forms are turned in to the government.

2. It's against the law, but I have few doubts that covert databases based on the 4473s or the "instant check" phone calls are being created at the federal level. The record of federal officials doing things in direct defiance of law is extensive, easily observed even now and verifiable.

3. We, as individuals, can also play the "computer game." It's worthwhile to create your own written or computerized database of whatever you own, with a specific notation on each gun as to where you acquired it - either from a dealer or in a (still legal) private transaction where no official record exists. And no one but you has the right to see it - if we can believe that the 5th Amendment is still in force.

4. When push comes to shove and Big Brother may eventually come for your guns, then you'll be quite aware of which ones they know about and which ones they don't.

5. And remember that the American Revolution began on Lexington Green when the overreaching British government ordered the redcoats to seize the colonists' firearms. American patriots had the guts to stand and fight then, and all hell broke loose.* Let us all pray that it will never come to history repeating itself. It would be immensely ugly, beyond all imagination. If soldiers or federal agents were ordered to go door to door to collect guns, they would have to make individual decisions: follow orders or follow the Constitution they swore to uphold, including the Second Amendment. Individual citizens would also have to make the gut-wrenching decision as to whether or not to fire on fellow Americans if necessary in defense of their inalienable and immutable rights.

John

* http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-lexington-and-concord

 

[Old TexMex]

The "Border States Initiative" and "Caribbean Neighbours" (I think that's what that one is called) both allow for the non uniform application of law, and are in defiance of equal protection under the law. Agents are acting under orders, issued based on policy. Misguided policy at best.

Trust but verify.

 

[jdh]

I guess it's actually a good thing that all my guns were lost in that infamous boating accident.

You got no proof. I kept pics of the contents of my residential security container after the Great Bastrop Country Labor Day Conflagration of 2011.

Since my homeowners policy had a limit o $250 on firearms and accessories I have not been able to replace anything but a used Jennings J-22.

 

[wbraswell]

Can y'all tell me where I can get a job with the Federal Government monitoring the Smith & Wesson Forum? I think I could handle that. Maybe some internet porn sites, too. Can I put in overtime?

 

[Bill Bates]

Can y'all tell me where I can get a job with the Federal Government monitoring the Smith & Wesson Forum? I think I could handle that. Maybe some internet porn sites, too. Can I put in overtime?

Move to Utah and you go to work at the No Such Agency complex where the NSA stores and monitors every bit of electronic traffic generated everywhere.

 

[k22fan]

[...]
3. We, as individuals, can also play the "computer game." It's worthwhile to create your own written or computerized database of whatever you own, with a specific notation on each gun as to where you acquired it - either from a dealer or in a (still legal) private transaction where no official record exists. And no one but you has the right to see it - if we can believe that the 5th Amendment is still in force. [...]

From what little I know of computer privacy I suggest reconsidering making a computer record of the guns you want to keep out of data bases.

 

[pharmer]

I don't understand the argument that the ATF can accept a million FFL out-of-business gun records each month and are able to put them on microfiche, but entering a few lines of information in a database from the 4473 is such an overwhelming and budget busting notion that it could only live in the minds of the "paranoid".

In the last 10 years, within 20 miles of where I sit, at least 2 dozen FFL's have "gone away." I have bought guns from 4 or 5 of them on 4473's. I'm sure the info is in a dark cabinet in Funk and Wagnall's basement. Makes me wonder if the ATF has a campaign to hound FFLs out of business over paperwork errors. Joe

 

[younggun22]

Maybe we should start a conspiracy sub forum.

You bring the tin foil hats and I'll bring the Kool-Aid

 

[old bear]

Do you have any idea the size of staff it would take to perform the data entry/scanning/etc. for the MILLIONS of firearms sold daily in America???

Don't even get started on the multi-millions that were available before this silly form was started!!!

It would cost more than the current HMFWIC could come up with.

Sir, you are, I believe, correct, but when was the last time you knew the government to really care what anything cost?
Come on, ya never heard of the uncle sugar make a job foundation?

 

[Ramikrav]

As an American of Jewish descent who has studied the issues of gun control thoroughly because of the historic precedent of the Nazi regime's use of such in the implementation of the "final solution", allow me some observations:

First off, I am in no way shape or form suggesting this is Nazi Germany, or that gun control advocates are Nazis. This is just a little perspective, from my own unique point of view that I wish to share, please take it as such.

I do not believe for a second that the vast majority of our service members -who are our fellow Americans- in the military or the police would ever knowingly enforce a weapons confiscation scheme, especially not one that made people defenseless based on race, creed, or ethnicity.I ESPECIALLY do not believe our people would enforce laws that directly resulted in people being disarmed previous to being marched to death camps.

That being said, there is in fact enormous historical precedent for the abuse of weapons laws, from antiquity when they targeted contact weapons to today, being used by despots, oligarchs, and tyrants to facilitate their power and agendas.

Heck, the first battles that became our Revolution were fought when the British sent Hessian mercs to confiscate our arms at Lexington and Concorde.
They had their orders, we had our human rights, and that spirit will NEVER be extinguished in America.

Now on to the point, i'll try to keep it as short and sweet as possible-

In Wiemar Germany, the now defunct Republic that the Nazi's usurped, the democratically elected, liberal parliament passed weapons control laws because of street fighting between the various fringe groups, who were political groups that formed based on the relatively widespread belief in the illegitimacy of the Republic.

Among those laws passed was a registration of weapons decree.

When the Nazis took over, a Jewish man tried to assassinate a Nazi diplomat abroad, and it was all the nazis needed to amend those laws to directly target Jews -by name- for disarmament.

The Nazis did in fact use the registries, which were certainly not centralized on any modern computer bank lol, to target jews who were known to (previously to the Nazi amendment) legally own guns.

It was not difficult to search the records and the registry was very complete and thorough as to who owned what, easily leading the nazi regime's enforcers to who among the new "prohibited possessors" classes had what- resulting in pretty much no known effective resistance by Jews in Germany afterwards, to the "final solution".

It is merely an educated guess to presume that had the registries not existed -even in the primitive (by today's standards) form that it was- that armed Jews may have been more of a "problem" for Nazi authorities.

I like to think they would have been, given the heroics at Warsaw and those of the many armed Jewish partisans in other areas that were not previously held by Germany under the Republic and thus subject to its registration of arms.

Finally-
I do not believe that registration of arms is useful as a public safety measure.

In fact, weapons laws that have historically been used to oppress a conquered populace, a minority group, or lower classes in many other nations throughout world history, in my very humble opinion, make for very poor public policy in a supposedly free nation.

We are Americans.

We should not tolerate any form of registration,even though we believe that we will never see the kind of evil that has been noted abroad.

Lastly, we have had gun control as a public safety measure since 1934, on a federal level, with the NFA34; followed by the GCA68 in the 1960's (which some may argue is Wiemar/Nazi plagiarized), and Brady in the 90's. Including the now defunct "assault weapons ban" (also the 90's), thats 4 major federal laws passed in almost 100 years, add to that the thousands of local and state laws, and if you ask me, if gun control worked as a public safety policy, then gun control proponents would not be constantly needing to "demand more".
With all those laws being passed encompassing almost 100 years of our history, if weapons laws made for good public safety policy, we'd all be living in the violence free utopia that those proponents constantly promise will be the result of letting them violate, yet again, that which shall not be infringed.

The most glaring indictment of modern American weapons control laws is not in the history of how tyrants have abused such- its in the FACT that gun control is an abject failure as a public safety measure.

We don't need to play the "nazi card" to make this point.

Gun control has had almost 100 years, four major federal acts and countless other laws to prove any merit it may have had as a public safety measure.

If the NFA34 worked, how did Columbian cartels get FA weapons in the 80's?

If GCA68 worked then why is there a constant stream of dangerous people with records still abusing firearms?

If background checks worked, then how come the ever-growing list of modern mass shooters who passed theirs and were able to buy their weapons in accordance with such laws?

We do not need to resort to historical comparisons and attempted analogies between bloodthirsty regimes' abuse of such laws and the laws we have here to prove that gun control fails, and as such represents a burden on our unalienable rights as Americans that the government cannot justify.

Lock up KNOWN dangerous people in prison or asylums, yes.

Make it difficult for decent people to defend themselves from the nuts we DON'T know with Gun control, no!

 

[Rustyt1953]

Ramikrav, you have certainly done your homework.

Well done.

 

[Skeet 028]

So all those 4473's from defunct FFL's are just collecting dust?

Actually no they aren't. According to BATF they are destroyed after doing a photo file or whatever they call it now. The dealer has to keep 20 yrs of records. When I had an inspection done at 27 yrs the inspector was really annoyed because I had destroyed records older than 20 yrs..but it is the law. When I went out of business I had to send in ALL my 4473s and my bound book.(I made a copy before hand) IIRC a written bound book is still required. I can check that though. The BATF can come check your records at any time just showing up. One guy had a portable copier and was making copies of EVERY 4473. I questioned what he was looking for after he had done 30 or so and though it kinda PO'd him I requested he stop and tell me what record he might need. Never did explain. Most ATF agents were courteous and forthcoming. Was checked by the FBI once about my ammo sales after a murder committed with a 9mm sub gun. At the time I had sold no 9mm from the lot they were looking for. No idea how they had lot numbers. They were very courteous..even friendly! I do believe there is a database of firearms that could be considered as a basis for registration. Trust your Gummit?? Shore ya should! I have title to the Chesapeke Bay Bridge and just decided to sell it. Cheap!! Interested in buying??

 

[Rick_A]

Every gun owner also has a file on them. Heard it at the gun shop, so it is more true than the internet.

I'm going to destroy all my receivers and frames to build ghost guns out of all of 'em. That'll show 'em!

ETA:
My Wi-Fi just got interrupted...they must be hacking in...

 

[Old TexMex]

The men who allegedly killed Agent Brian Terry will go to trial shortly. Jury selection has begun. The Judge has ruled that the source of their weapons will not be allowed to enter into the evidence or testimony. Wonder why?

 

[Skeet 028]

Cause then they would have to charge the former AG...as he was an accomplice providing the weapon that was used...Yeah..a stretch but still truth. I hope they get the DP