FFL's sales records?
How long do they have to keep these? 20 years?
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I think its forever. 0 -
They keep them until they decide to close shop, when they are then required by law to turn them over to the BATF. 0 -
Form 4473 must be retained for a minimum of 20 years. A dealer's Acquisition and Deposition records, the so called "Bound Book", must be retained for the duration of the dealer's engaging in the business. When the business is permanently discontinued and there is no successor, the Bound Book and any remaining 4473s are sent to the BATF Out Of Business Records Center in West Virginia. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by mark christian
Form 4473 must be retained for a minimum of 20 years. A dealer's Acquisition and Deposition records, the so called "Bound Book", must be retained for the duration of the dealer's engaging in the business. When the business is permanently discontinued and there is no successor, the Bound Book and any remaining 4473s are sent to the BATF Out Of Business Records Center in West Virginia.
Exactly.
And this is how a permanent back-door "registration" of firearms is being achieved.
Except....the problem is: those firearms that are transferred privately at some point in their life end up "off" the "registry" the government is keeping.
This is why those seeking to ban firearms are so focused on stopping any private sales.
The terms like "universal background checks" or "closing the gun show loophole" are all about eliminating the "holes" in the government's record of each firearm transaction.
Stopping private sales and forcing every transaction to be listed on a Form 4473 and be recorded in an FFL's record book, will give the ATF a complete list of "where all the legally-purchased firearm are."0 -
But, federal law prohibits the federal government from maintaining a firearms ownership data base. If the "private transfer loophole" were closed, theoretically the feds could scan all 4473's to start a data base. Problem is, the information will be so out of date that few records would be accurate.
Neal0 -
"And this is how a permanent back-door "registration" of firearms is being achieved."........................when I hear this I think of the Indiana Jones movie where they end up wheeling a big box into a caverious wharehouse [;)] 0 -
quote:Originally posted by nmyers
But, federal law prohibits the federal government from maintaining a firearms ownership data base. If the "private transfer loophole" were closed, theoretically the feds could scan all 4473's to start a data base. Problem is, the information will be so out of date that few records would be accurate.
Neal
You are correct that there is federal law specifically stating the government is prohibited from keeping information in a "registry" form, but there is no clear definition on how the mandate to ATF to keep and maintain old FFL records is not a defacto registry.
There is nothing "theoretical" about the Feds scanning old 4473s they collect from FFLs that close up shop. If you purchased a firearm post-1968 through an FFL and the FFL is out of business, the ATF has a record of that transaction in their databases. (If the FFL is still in business, the FFL is maintaining a record of your purchase.)
The Form 4473 data being "old" isn't any issue when private transfers are prohibited. It would take one generation for the "complete" registry to be in place, but after private transfers are prohibited, the government will have a "paper trail" for every firearm transaction. And any individual, who had purchased a firearm from an FFL, would have no way of transferring that firearm without a clear paper trail, or risking being caught fairly easily.
Old addresses and name changes is not any problem when dealing with this issue. The government has better records about where citizens have lived than most records people keep on themselves. (You have to understand the mind of the bureaucrat wanting "order" in their "world.")
The glaring "hole" gun-grabbing bureaucrats see in their system of tracking guns is the private sale. This is why they are pounding away at the "gun show loophole," "universal background checks," and "common sense gun laws" mantra so vehemently.
They have to close that private-sale "hole" in their records if they are ever going to achieve their goals of disarming the population. They know any confiscation will never work without a nearly complete data-base showing where all the guns are.0 -
I wonder how many times the BATFE gets a letter saying, "Hi, I'm an FFL and I am closing shop forever. Unfortunately, I can't send my records because they were being stored in a shed that has burned down. Sorry." or "My storage unit that had all my records was burglarized and everything was taken." [;)][:)] 0 -
Had a friend only turn in last 20 years an was questioned where rest went. real sad when you had to pay some one to look at 40 or 60 year old records 0 -
"I wonder how many times the BATFE gets a letter saying, "Hi, I'm an FFL and I am closing shop forever. Unfortunately, I can't send my records because they were being stored in a shed that has burned down. Sorry." or "My storage unit that had all my records was burglarized and everything was taken.""
OR the dealer dropped all his books into a water tank for a couple of weeks and then let them sit outside for a while before informing BATFE that he'd had a flood in his document storage area.0
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