I don’t like to put myself in a position of having to explain my actions. I keep my receipts and records accordingly.
Since you aren't required to keep records of your sales, if someone asks about a gun you sold, all you have to explain is that you sold it. That's it.
https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/wha...followed-when-two-unlicensed-individuals-want
"When a transaction takes place between unlicensed persons who reside in the same state, the Gun Control Act (GCA) does not require any record keeping."
On the other hand, if you do keep receipts and records and those records seem to incriminate you (say a gun you owned turns out to have been stolen before you received it or a person you sell to turns out to be a prohibited person) then you might end up doing a lot more in the way of explaining your actions.
The way I see it, you have two choices if you want to avoid explaining your actions:
1. Do all your sales through FFLs or sell only to FFLs so that the next buyer is background checked and if there's a question, you can just refer those questions to the FFL. If you think records are good, then go all the way and let a licensee generate and maintain the records under penalty of federal law. This means that they take the responsibility if records are incorrect or go missing.
2. Keep no records at all of guns that you no longer own. Then if someone asks about one, your only explanation would be: "I don't know if I ever owned that gun because I don't keep records of guns I no longer own. If I did ever own it, I don't know where it went after I owned it because I don't keep records of the guns I no longer own."
A legal sale just requires a check of an ID to be sure they are a state resident, and them verbally attesting they are not prohibited.
You are not required to check their ID nor are you required to get them to attest to their status either verbally or otherwise.
The exception would be if you have reason to believe that they are prohibited. Then you would either need to check to make sure they aren't or stop the transaction.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you voluntarily take it upon yourself to create and maintain records and do checks on your firearm sales, you need to do a good job of it. Even though you aren't required to do those things, if you CHOOSE to do them and then do a shoddy job of it, that could reflect poorly on you and may even be seen as evidence of guilt. Say, for example, if one of your records goes missing or turns out to have incorrect information, or if one of your checks fails to identify a prohibited person that should have been easy to detect.
So, Mr. ____, you expect us to believe that you do checks on all the buyers of your guns but when you checked ____ you failed to determine that he didn't live in your state? What sort of check did you do? Perhaps you didn't really do any check at all, but have falsified a record in an attempt to cover up the fact that you knowingly sold to a prohibited person.
So, Mr.____, you expect us to believe that you diligently keep records of all your firearm sales, but somehow the receipt for the gun you sold to _____ has gone missing. How could a thing like that happen? Perhaps you destroyed evidence to hide the fact that you knowingly sold to a prohibited person.
