Paper trails on purchases

My friend recently bought his first gun that came from a dealer. He wanted to know what sort of records they kept on him. I have no idea on how to answer this. I know that the background check cannot be kept for more than a day, but what do/can stores keep on who purchases guns?

The dealer keeps the ATF Form 4473 that you fill out when you buy a gun. The ATF can audit a dealers bound book at any time, but that isn't exactly an everyday occurance.

The FBI keeps the information entered as part of the instant background check. I don't recall offhand exactly what information is entered - it's been a while since I've run one through. Name, address, DOB, probably some other stuff in there. By law, the FBI cannot maintain this information, but I'm reasonably certain that they do anyway. Disk space is cheap these days.

- Chris

Do they keep track of what gun you bought, or just that you bought one? If someone was to do a trace on a gun I bought, would they see that the dealer sold that particular gun to me, or would they see that he simply sold the gun to an approved buyer?

Only that you bought a longgun or handgun. They can trace the gun to the importer/manufacturer, then to the dealer, then to you, should that need arise

All dealer bound books are turned into the BATFE when the dealer goes out of business.
The dealer maintains and keeps the books until that time.
Dealers can destroy original 4473 forms twenty years after the sale transfer but he must maintain the disposition in the bound books.
Private citizens must maintain a dispositon of private transfer record for ten years.
In other words, if the paper trail bothers you,
Buy guns from private parties and keep them for ten years, the paper trail ends there.

"Private citizens must maintain a dispositon of private transfer record for ten years."

That is not a Federal law, and it is not a FLA law. Maybe a Daley-ism??

Private citizens must maintain a dispositon of private transfer record for ten years

Thats a new one on me too.

Lets move this in another direction. What goes into the bound book?

And it's not that I am worried about a paper trail, it was just a question that caught me off guard. I had never really thought about what is recorded.

Break the chain whenever you can.

The 4473s are assigned a sequence number (by date) and kept in a binder.

In a separate Fed book the gun is logged in on receipt from wholesaler and then the date of purchase, buyer and sequence number from the 4473 are recorded to close out the disposition line on that firearm.

The bound book contains the name and address of the buyer. There is no central Federal registration and we are trying very hard to keep from having such a thing, though John Kerry has supported mandatory registration of all guns.

Most traces are forward traces, with the normal path being from manufacturer or importer, to distributor, to dealer, to retail purchaser. The transfer is recorded at each step; in an emergency, and with no glitches, the trace can be completed in 15-20 minutes, but that is rarely the case.

I think there is no real problem unless a central registry is set up by Congress with dealers required to send in all the 4473 forms and all persons required to register their guns. Such a law would, of course, have to be enforced by massive raids by the armed forces, summary executions of offenders, and all the other ramifications of a total police state.

Sometimes, concern about registration and tracking is amusing. I remember one guy who told me he had bought an M1 rifle, but that he didn't want "the government" to know, and warned me not to reveal his "secret". I asked where he had gotten the rifle, and he whispered that he had gotten it through the NRA - in other words, from the Army. I assured him I would not let "the government" know.

Jim