National gun registry question.

[hso]

I have a question as well that I think is pertinent to this thread in a way, but I've always wondered if say, the feds or local authorities launched an investigation into me or any private citizen, and they were just poking around for Intel for suspected wrongdoing or were suiting up for a raid, would they have the 4473 information at their disposal to see if they were storming into an armed household or are they only able to operate under the assumption of "subject is likely to be armed" or can they definitively see all your purchase records and say for instance " 4473 records indicate subject is known to have purchased 4 AR15's, 6 shotguns and a Glock 17, etc...."?

Not in most states. Consider that 4473s are in-store records that would have to be physically checked. Also, the background check information is just to determine if you're prohibited from purchasing a firearm and doesn't include details other than on you (you've been present when they've called that in often enough to know that they just provide your personal info and nothing on the gun). So, for most of us there's no other information available at the state level or higher. I can't speak to all states, but here in TN we use a state system TICS background check for prohibited status and that is purged by the next day if there isn't a delay or hold.

OTOH, if your state has a carry permit system, THAT can be easily checked online by LEs.

So, for the most part, there's nothing other than trying to look through 4473s sitting in local FFLs to get that info.

 

[Encoreman]

Wouldn't the 2nd amendment have to be voted out before any Legal gun confiscation could occur??

 

[hso]

Wouldn't that be illegal for them to investigate someone doing legal activitys? I think that's call entrapment.

Nope. Entrapment is if they get you to do something that they can charge you with. People may be investigated if there is a suspicion of illegal activity, but there are supposed to be limits on what can be done without a warrant and that requires a judge to approve the warrant. Public information doesn't require a warrant, but a lot of private information, at least to make it useful in a trial, needs a warrant.

 

[starling]

If you don't exercise your rights you will loose them. Wouldn't that be illegal for them to investigate someone doing legal activitys? I think that's call entrapment.

They can investigate anyone they want. Registry system is just a tool to make things easier. Illegal to call it a Registry.... they can just call it a gun tracking system.

Legal activities? ... by whos definition. Legalities change depending on political winds. Then you have what is or is not enforced. Then you also have ex post facto laws... Lautenberg Amendment type stuff.

 

[starling]

Wouldn't the 2nd amendment have to be voted out before any Legal gun confiscation could occur??

Depends on what the definition of the 2nd amendment is

 

[hso]

Wouldn't the 2nd amendment have to be voted out before any Legal gun confiscation could occur??

That's leaning wayyyyyy beyond the scope of this discussion of whether scanning in old out of business records can be abused into a registry of firearms owners.

Also, you can't "vote out" an amendment. There's a well defined process with a very high bar that is built into the Constitution and BOR to be able to change or override an existing amendment to the Constitution. It requires 2/3rds of the States or 2/3rds of each house of Congress just to start the process. Then it takes 3/4s of the States to ratify a change before it can take place. There certainly aren't 2/3rds of the States that would even consider a change.

 

[starling]

Nope. Entrapment is if they get you to do something that they can charge you with. People may be investigated if there is a suspicion of illegal activity, but there are supposed to be limits on what can be done without a warrant and that requires a judge to approve the warrant. Public information doesn't require a warrant, but a lot of private information, at least to make it useful in a trial, needs a warrant.

Also relevant is which side of the spectrum the Judge is on and who funds them. Fun times we live in.

 

[hso]

a policeman calling and asking about a certain weapon or person isn't the way it happens.

Correct

Any of the LEOs here will tell you that it involves much more labor to track back to a gun shop to ask them to check their bound book for who a particular firearm was sold to.

I personally had this experience. A buddy had bought a Glock from me before the family moved to California. I had bought the gun as an LE trade-in from the local LE supply that bought knives from me.

Years later I get a call from a detective in California asking if I was the owner of a Glock 19 with serial number XXYYZZ bought from Local LE Supply? I said I had bought the gun from Local LE Supply and eventually sold it to my buddy before his family moved to the Bay Area and that my buddy had told me that the gun had been stolen. They said that they knew the gun had been stolen because my buddy had reported that and when the gun had been recovered in a crime scene they'd matched the serial number to his reporting of it being stolen. She thanked me and that was that. I went to the guys that had sold it to me and told them I'd gotten the call and we discussed the process needed for them to get to where they identified I'd bought it. The California police called Glock with the serial number. Glock told them what FFL had bought the gun. That FFL got a call and they checked their records to identify the department that bought a bunch of Glock 19s. That department got a call or email and they checked their records on the 19 and told the California police what FFL bought the gun (guns actually) when they sold them for credit to buy new guns. The California police called my buddies at the Local LE Supply that had bought the trad-ins and they went through their records to find that they'd sold it to me. A lot of phone calls and emails took place just to get from the manufacturer to the FFL to the department to the FFL to get them to look for who the gun had been sold to.

 

[CapnMac]

We, all of us, are basing our opinions and suppositions based on information provided by "journalists."

"Journalists" reported the photo below as being two (2) Barrett .50bmg, too . . .

(image via HSO)

 

[hso]

The record of a background check is not supposed to be retained.

Correct. That information is supposed to be deleted after the check as long as the recipient received approval for the purchase.
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/pia-nics.pdf/view

 

[kidneyboy]

How would anyone know who purchased those type kits? There is no record of them, as far as the government knows you are buying parts.

Put it on a credit card. Mention it on social media. Someone else can ask you about it on social media. Text someone or receive a text from someone about it. Talk about it in an email. Talk about it on a website. Mention in front of Siri or Alexa. Write a check for it. Pay cash but leave your phone number and email on the receipt.
You need to work pretty hard to keep stuff private these days.

 

[kalielkslayer]

There is no reason for us to not question our government. In fact, we have a responsibility to question them.

Is it paranoia???

Maybe!!!

Yet, I can’t believe the Australian government would be treating their citizens the way they are if Australians were still armed.

As a nation, we have witnessed our governments way exceed their authority, at the local, state and federal levels

How much worse would it be if we weren’t an armed society?

So for me, the paranoia is warranted each and every time government takes any step that could possibly be construed as a step towards gun confiscation.

 

[Pudge]

With our current situation, I can't see how anyone can prove that I own or possess a single firearm. I could have easily sold or given away every firearm I've ever possessed. There are records of purchases, and I wish there weren't, but I don't have a responsibility to keep a bound book, and my recall is less than perfect. What I've bought from a dealer may have a paper trail, but what I own is not the same.

And even with the existing paper trail, in the case of a used gun, police contact mfg, who lists the distributer, who lists the gun shop, who lists original buyer, who is dead. Widow doesn't know where he sold it. What then? Do I have a model 19 that can't be traced to me even if I filled out a 4473?

 

[hso]

Pudge, you can't convince the paranoid that someone's not out to get them and that their enemies don't really have superpowers in the process.

 

[denton]

I suspect that most of the firearms in this country are non-traceable. A vast quantity of them were owned before the 4473 came into existence. Still more were handed down within a family. More yet were sold or traded in legal, private transactions. 25 years or so after the initial purchase, I suspect that most paper trails no longer exist.

The hysteria over a few "non-traceable ghost guns" is much ado about nothing.

 

[starling]

No "superpowers" needed. Just data collection and taxpayer funding along with a type of person that does not question orders.

 

[dogtown tom]

The record of a background check is not supposed to be retained.

Not true.
Only FBI NICS transactions that resulted in a "Proceed" are deleted at the end of the NICS business day.
"Delayed" transactions whose status changes to "Proceed" are deleted at the end of the day that happens.
"Denied" transactions and "Delayed" transactions whose status changes to "Denied" are kept permanently.

I suspect they are copied to some non-NICS outfit for "audit".

For "Proceeds" that's not legal.

So it can be readily determined that John Q. Public bought a handgun from Acme Industries on February 2, 2020. A call to the local BATF office and a visit to Acme to look in the bound book or 4473 file brings up John's address and a description of his pistol.

Huh?
That's not how a firearm trace works. Starting with the name of the buyer leads to nothing as that info was deleted that evening, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of transfers that are exempt from NICS. If a law enforcement agency called the ATF National Tracing Center asking "Mayberry PD would like to trace all firearms bought by John Q. Public".....at best they'll get laughed at. Maybe even hung up on because that not how it works.

If you call the local ATF office? They have no clue, its not their job. Firearm traces are conducted by the ATF National Tracing Center, not local ATF offices. And the NTC cannot trace by the buyers name. They trace the FIREARM. The requesting LE agency contacts > ATF NTC who contacts manufacturer or importer who> tells NTC who they transferred to. NTC then contacts that distributor or dealer who reports back to> NTC who then contacts each licensee until there is a licensee who has a 4473 disposition to a nonlicensee. That dealer than sends in a copy of that 4473 to the National Tracing Center> who notifies the requesting agency.

In order to find out if John Q. Public ever bought a gun? It's not a trace, but a plea to licensed dealers.
In 2012, Terrance Black murdered his ex girlfriend:https://www.dallasnews.com/news/201...uilty-in-murder-of-frisco-fitness-instructor/
Prior to the trial, the US Attorney's Office in Dallas sent out an email and a letter to every licensed dealer in my town asking if we had sold a gun to this guy. If ATF could trace by name he wouldn't have had to do that.

Customer protection fails in three steps.

What do you think that's supposed to mean?

 

[Will Munny]

I know this topic has been hot lately and I don't think there is much to add but let me try. Basically,

• Any time a firearm transfer involves the collection of any information by any type of government agency, you should assume that information is being retained indefinitely. Any law to the contrary is not an adequate protection, and if the target of this type of data collection was any right other than the 2A people would be beside themselves with rage for that reason.
• The "non-traceable" aspect is not a significant protection either. Since so many transfers are traced, it would also be possible to impute some of the missing data. Example. A bought this gun from an FFL. Later on, B sells it to C via an FFL. It does not take much to assume A must have sold it to B, even if theoretically Z might have been in the middle too.
• The "non-traceable" aspect is vulnerable to a de facto legal closure if any kind of liability law were to be enacted to the effect of if X was the last known person to have this firearm, and it is used in a crime, then X must be able to prove they sold/transferred it legally. While not requiring a background check, it could have the chilling effect on private sales.

 

[Jim Watson]

that info was deleted that evening,

The difference is that you think the feds obey the law and I don't.
I don't think they have every gun and every gun buyer at their fingertips, but they have or can get enough registration type information to harass some and scare the rest.

 

[12Bravo20]

Not true.
Only FBI NICS transactions that resulted in a "Proceed" are deleted at the end of the NICS business day.
"Delayed" transactions whose status changes to "Proceed" are deleted at the end of the day that happens.
"Denied" transactions and "Delayed" transactions whose status changes to "Denied" are kept permanently.

And don't forget about Voluntary Appeal Files, which does allow the FBI NICS to maintain records.

 

[DeepSouth]

See post #10

Right, if more laws are passed, as mentioned in post 10, THEN post 2 could be true. But as of now it’s not.

Also, you can't "vote out" an amendment.

This is correct, I can’t, you can’t, we can’t, but SCOTUS can.
Sure it's more complicated than that, but at the end of the day it can be done with only the President and the judicial system.

 

[Poper]

Pudge, you can't convince the paranoid that someone's not out to get them and that their enemies don't really have superpowers in the process.

Just because Pudge might be paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get him.

 

[dogtown tom]

The difference is that you think the feds obey the law and I don't.
I don't think they have every gun and every gun buyer at their fingertips, but they have or can get enough registration type information to harass some and scare the rest.

Sorry, but I don't believe in conspiracy theories....and that's exactly what you are describing.
I'm sure there are federal agents who don't obey the law, but unless you have some proof that NICS is storing info they shouldn't.....then show us.
Otherwise its "Moon Landing Was Faked"

Further, as mentioned ad nauseum many times here on THR, FBI NICS is only told the buyers descriptive information and type of firearm (handgun, long gun, other).
They aren't told the brand, the model, the serial number or caliber......nor are they told how many firearms were acquired that day.

 

[wiscoaster]

Wouldn't the 2nd amendment have to be voted out before any Legal gun confiscation could occur??

Depends on what national firearm law defines as a legal firearm. Used to be anyone could own a machine gun. Not any more. If you're in possession of one that hasn't been registered and you haven't paid the $200 excise tax on it then you're a felon and it will be confiscated.

 

[Pudge]

Pudge, you can't convince the paranoid that someone's not out to get them and that their enemies don't really have superpowers in the process.

Just to be clear, I do not trust that the government is not out to get me, nor that the government would not hesitate to misuse the information they collect for its benefit no matter who it harmed. I just don't see retaining and having access to 4473's being a meaningful threat to anyone's freedoms. I am far more concerned with information I put on this forum, and who might be collecting it, than I am by the knowledge that the government can access 4473's.