Checking for "hot" pistols?

I think you need to find some new friends...

You can check with your local PD to see if they are willing to run the serial numbers for you, but are you prepared for the repercussions if one of them is stolen?

There's no database you can check it against yourself.

Never used it, but others have suggested it in the past. Note: it's far from complete.
http://www.hotgunz.com/

From another recent thread:

you really don't have legal worries.

You certainly could be buying something that had been reported stolen at some point, but there's really no way to tell that until or unless a that gun was confiscated by a law-enforcement officer and the serial numbers run. If it did come back as reported stolen, you'd have to explain where you got it, but the abandoned property sale clears you of any wrong-doing. You'd lose that gun, of course, so don't pay a fortune for any of them.

Of course, very few of us will ever have any of our firearms "run" by the police, so even if it was reported stolen the possibility that the fact would ever be discovered is mighty slim.

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Maybe stop by your local pawn shop, buy a couple of CDs or something so now you are a customer. Then ask the guy how they do it.

Around here they have to check, and hold the merchandise 30 days just to be more certain stuff doesn't show up stolen later.

Local laws often require pawn shops to check for stolen guns since they are so often the first place a thief takes stolen goods. But even so, they only call or check against a list provided by the local police or sheriff's office of stolen property in their jurisdiction. There is no national data base of stolen goods.

I will note that with the current economic situation, a lot of unemployed folks are selling stuff they don't really need, including guns. Those fortunate enough to have ready cash can pick up some real bargains.

(In a way I have to admire Obama. He made a deal with China to put competing American companies out of business, yet union members cheer him from the unemployment lines! I don't know how he does it.)

Jim

If you think you are buying hot guns from a shady character then don't! If you think you are buying guns cheap from a guy down on his luck or who just doesn't know what they are worth use your conscious. I don't feel much guilt from somebody who solicits the sale and sets their price on a FTF deal so long as that voice in my head doesn't say theif.
Its been over 20 yrs since a LE took possession of a gun and ran it (It was CO.HP on I-25) but when ever dealing with a private citizen there are no guarantees, a dealer gives a bill of sale and does a 4473 so if you somehow end up with a stolen gun and they have any sense for business at all they will make it right. A FTF might be hard to find unless you are an acquaintance and will be less likely to make the bad deal right.

Jim K said:

There is no national data base of stolen goods.

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Every law enforcement agency I'm familiar with uses the NCIC (National Crime Information Center), which I'm pretty sure is a national database.

NCIC is a computerized index of criminal justice information (i.e.- criminal record history information, fugitives, stolen properties, missing persons). It is available to Federal, state, and local law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies and is operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

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Categories of records in the system:


A. Stolen Vehicle File: 1. Stolen vehicles. 2. Vehicles wanted in
conjunction with felonies or serious misdemeanors. 3. Stolen vehicle
parts including certificates of origin or title.
B. Stolen License Plate File.
C. Stolen Boat File.
D. Stolen Gun File: 1. Stolen guns. 2. Recovered guns, when ownership
of which has not been established.
E. Stolen Article File.

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http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fbi/is/ncic.htm

Yeah, you would have to talk to someone in a law enforcement agency who has access to the national criminal insta-check system. We peasants do not have access to this database.

I'm sure records of checks are kept so I doubt many LE are going to stick their necks out so joe public can feel good about his deal. Any LE please chime in.

People sell stuff cheap all the time when they need cash. This is no indication of a crime and if the seller is willing to give you the serial numbers he must believe that they are legit.

I think you need to find some new friends...

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Or ease up a little. I had a sort-of friend when I was younger, we hung out a bit but I thought he was a tool, naturally because he was, and I don't think he liked me much either. We went shooting together a couple of times, each with our own pistol, and weirdly, after checking out my HK, he meticulously wiped it down before handing it back to me.

I'm glad he got his filthy oils off my gun for me, but after that I never talked to him again. It showed a very ignorant view of gun ownership in general and me as a person specifically. You might be playing my former friend's role by trying to run numbers for a gun before buying them.

As a non-FFL you don't have access to the NCIC system, for excellent reasons, and when buying private property your options are these- Know the entire history of the item, like if a close friend bought it new and you were one of the first people he told about it, or exercise your judgement. Is this friend of your friend known to associate heavily with gang members or burglars? If so, maybe it's not such a bad idea to pass on the purchase, even though your personal risks are extremely low.

Or is he just someone you don't know as well as you know your friend? If so, suck it up and put the thought of running into trouble over the guns out of your mind, because a situation that would result in trouble for you beyond losing them is far-fetched, and the chances that they are stolen and that you'll lose them in the future is pretty miniscule as well.

I'd say unless you have some very specific problem with the current owner of the firearms, don't worry about them, lots of people sell their guns every year, many of us don't like the super-lowballing we get from a store, so put 'em up as for sale by owner. The other guy is probably just happy to be selling them to someone he knows at least a little personally.

As a non-FFL you don't have access to the NCIC system

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As an FFL, I don't have access to NCIC, either. I have access to NICS, but that only enables me to do go/no-go background checks of individuals for gun transfers; there's no way to check for stolen guns.

It's been a quite a few years, but before I took possession of the one .45 I bought from a private party I just called the local sheriff's office & asked them to run the serial number for me. They didn't bat an eye at the request, just checked & told me there was no record of that firearm having been reported stolen.

Nick

Depending on the department, if an officer runs a serial number and it DOES come back stolen, he better be able to put his hands on it.

Exactly, imagine if every FTF transaction could be checked at the whim of the buyer by his local PD or SO. Would this be done anonymously or would arrest/confiscation be a consequence of the seller. I think this path leads to a place we don't want to go.

Unfortunately, when buying used it's always buyer beware - from an individual or an FFL. If a private seller is willing to show me a picture ID and sign a bill of sale with name, address, drivers license, phone and serial numbers, that's a pretty good sign that the seller is not passing off something they believe to be stolen.

The only way you can be guarantee the provenance of a firearm is to buy new.

A prosecutor is likely to consider an extraordinarily low price as evidence the buyer "should have known" the goods might be "hot". If it gets this far, the seller's goose is cooked too; he will sell the buyer down the river faster than a scalded cat heads for the door.

Seems to me if the deal appears too good to be true, ask the seller if he has any reason to believe the goods are hot, if the answer is no and some doubt remains, ask if he minds if you check the serial numbers with the local PD.

If the answer is no he doesn't mind, then the buyer should have no guilt if it turns out the goods are hot and the seller has some problems to deal with.

On the other hand, if either question is answered yes, simply pass on it.

45_auto said:

Depending on the department, if an officer runs a serial number and it DOES come back stolen, he better be able to put his hands on it.

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He very well better be able to lay hands on it. Once you run a firearm, if it shows a record for stolen the entering agency is automatically notified that someone has ran that firearm. They will be calling or sending a teletype wanting to have the gun returned, circumstances behind finding the gun, and suspect information, ect. Misuse of the NCIC system can get access revoked for the agency and sometimes the entire state. So its not something they take lightly.

I felt like I was using the wrong acronym...

I've always made handwritten receipts for face to face sales (in duplicate) as a seller, though I haven't made that many ftf transactions. I don't have receipts for some of the guns I've bought because I got them from friends, but I have receipts for most of the guns I've purchased. I even have documentation for the first gun I ever bought 35 years ago (model 190 winchester from K-Mart, which I still own.) I can't be the only one who does this.

Ask the seller for his purchase receipt. If he doesn't have it, then ask him to write AND SIGN/DATE a seller's receipt to you AND have him show you his driver lic. with photo on it. Write down his lic. # address and phone #. Tell him you expect this before you give him the money. If he's not willing to do this, then walk. Good luck.

If he doesn't have it, then ask him to write AND SIGN/DATE a seller's receipt to you AND have him show you his driver lic. with photo on it. Write down his lic. # address and phone #. Tell him you expect this before you give him the money. If he's not willing to do this, then walk. Good luck.

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+1 on this. I do a bill of sale on FTF transactions for a couple of reasons. First of all, the bill of sale includes the serial number. If the firearm is lost, even if I haven't recorded the serial number elsewhere, I still have it. Secondly, I believe it reduces the change of being involved with someone who has nefarious intents. The bill of sale includes addresses, phone numbers, and drivers license info for both parties, a description of the firearm, and a statement that the buyer is not prohibited from owing a firearm. It's signed. I use bills of sale I got with by bound book for C&R stuff but you can do the same thing on a blank 8.5x11 sheet of paper.

I realize a small percentage of lawful firearms owners with no nefarious intent strongly object to bills of sales as they could potentially be obtained by law enforcement in event of some future confiscation. These folks are pretty few in number and, while the concern has some validity, I've decided that record keeping is more important to me.

I bought a desirable 5" SW nickled revolver at an extremly good price.
It was run through NCIC w/o raising a flag.

About a year or so later, I sold it to someone who also had access to NCIC. This time, it popped up 'hot'. It had been stolen from a Residental Burglary and it had taken some time for the details to get into the NCIS 'puter.

OOps, during that window, in walked salty.

No one lost a job and no retirement/pension benefits were lost. A friendship was.

After compensation payment for a casualty loss, ownership transfered to the original victim's Homeowners Policy carrier, so it was impossible to return the property to the victim of the home theft. Police don't want it, the Homeowners Insurance carrier don't want it, original owner data isn't public, and, even with help, trying to 'do the right thing' had turned to a convoluted can of worms.

Sometimes, it may be prefeable to remain 'fat, dumb, and happy'.

Lots of bureaucratic Catch 22s are out there. This is one of them.

salty

Saltydogs story is good reason to let chips fall where they may, all the bills of sale in the world won't make right a stolen gun and often there is a time lapse between a theft and the administrative reporting to NCIC.
I still say let your conscience be your guide and stay away from deals that are just to good to be true.
I'm not saying that keeping a log with some details of a transaction aren't relevant but exchanging info like address and drivers license and posibly a check with your account number in todays world is a recipe for disaster.
I won't give the info up and I really don't expect others to either, if we are talking a storefront business then that's a whole other matter.

but exchanging info like address and drivers license and posibly a check with your account number in todays world is a recipe for disaster.

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Disaster? Really? I can see not wanting to be stuck with the "hot potato" of having to (possibly) recompense the buyer if the gun you sold him turns up stolen. (Though it leaves him up the creek. Better him than you, though...I guess.)

And I understand the inconvenience of being interviewed by the PD to find out if you can tell them who you got it from, and possibly help track down who stole it to begin with -- but are these things "disasters?"

You aren't going to jail over it, in almost any conceivable scenario -- as long as you really didn't have anything to do with the theft.

Personally, the only reason I'm opposed to an un-required paper trail is for the hypothetical confiscation of guns in some apocalyptic "turn them all in" scenario that's so popular. I rather appreciate efforts to track down stolen guns, prosecute thieves, and return property to rightful owners.