Record Retention - Form 4473 Question

It's strictly up to the individual business.
As far as I know the shop where I worked hasn't destroyed any 4473's since it opened in the 70's.

I have a question about this too, are FFLs audited in any way on a relatively regular basis?

In all the years I worked in a gun shop, I only saw the ATF twice, and both times they were investigating specific individuals and cases, not the shop itself.

Frank Ettin said:

Your personal experience is not necessarily a reliable indication of what is actually going on in the world Folks who want good information go to the best sources for that information. In this case, the ATF tells us quite a lot here about their dealer monitoring practices.

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It's actually 100% reliable since it's first hand, real world knowledge.

Folks wanting only what you call "good information" could do as Google search instead of asking questions here, even though what I said was also 100% accurate.

They don't "audit dealers on a relatively regular basis", which was the actual question.

There were more than 139,000 FFLs in fiscal year 2015. This includes firearm licenses for dealers, manufacturers, importers, and collectors. During that time, ATF conducted 8,696 firearms compliance inspections.

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Maybe your experience working in a gun shop is different from mine, and you can share it.

Or you can do what you normally do an just delete my posts without a trace.

That actually squares with my experience too.

I worked at Arizona sportsman for a couple years in '98 and 99 and I only ever saw the ATF once. Specific case.

Never saw any records destroyed.

Frank Ettin said:

But it's only your experience. There are a lot of other folks who also work, or have worked, at a lot of different gun shops who may, or may not, have had similar experience.

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Thank you for pointing out something so obvious, even though I didn't make claims to the contrary.

Your source said they only inspected around 1/16th of the FFL's per year.

There were more than 139,000 FFLs in fiscal year 2015. This includes firearm licenses for dealers, manufacturers, importers, and collectors. During that time, ATF conducted 8,696 firearms compliance inspections.

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If your source is reliable I see no way anyone could say they audit all FFL's on a regular basis.
In my experience they don't.

I realize you just want to argue now, so I'll leave you to it to save you the trouble of locking yet another thread.

Snyper said:

If your source is reliable I see no way anyone could say they audit all FFL's on a regular basis.
In my experience they don't.

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Frank Ettin said:

My source is the ATF. I'd submit they'd be reliable on this question.

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I would say that you are both correct. What is a regular basis or examination schedule?

I have become acquainted with three FFLs near my home. A pawn shop that deals almost exclusively in used guns. He get an ATF inspection almost annually. A conventional gun shop that’s been in business for a number of decades hasn’t seen an inspector for at least 7 years that he can recall. The third is a class 3 FFL that has only been in business for a couple of years with a large selection of suppressors and has been inspected once.

ATF staffing compared to the number of FFLs would preclude frequent (annual) inspections of all of them so a regular basis is going to be based on the perceived risk to determine the inspection interval for any given FFL.

I've worked at two different FFLs over the last 5 years, and I've been through 3 ATF compliance inspections in that time.

Frank Ettin said:

My source is the ATF. I'd submit they'd be reliable on this question.

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And in how many other cases are you inclined to believe a federal agencies claims regarding how they carry out their functions, when contrasted with direct observations of citizens in the industry regarding what the federal agency REALLY does?

Now, it may be that the ATF actually does what they say they do much more strictly, faithfully, and carefully than most other federal agencies.

But I doubt it.

My LGS was visited by nine ATF agents for two weeks last year for a compliance inspection. They photographed the bound books, took a year's worth of 4473s for inspection and counted all 9,145 guns on the premises and compared them to the bound books.

I would not be surprised that the ATF prioritizes auditing FFL's where guns sold by that FFL turn up at crime scenes. If you remember, that was what Bloomburg was doing with ATF trace reports and the problem of certain out of state FFL's that sold weapons that frequently turned up in NYC. There is one gun dealer in Wisconsin and another in Illinois that have also been reported to be sources of guns found at crime scenes in Chicago. Also, there is often a distaste for certain pawnshops due sometimes to shady business practices by some in the law enforcement community. This might also be reflected in ATF audit priorities because of local police referrals.

FFL dealers focusing on new firearms instead of used ones really don't have the ATF worrying as much about whether the guns were previously used in crimes, are stolen, or are not properly booked to conceal illegal gun dealing (these also tend to be larger corporate dealers such as Walmart, Cabelas, etc.). They also tend to have better legal representation which just might also matter.

Mauser lover said:

I have a question about this too, are FFLs audited in any way on a relatively regular basis?

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They can be. When I worked at a gunshop we had an ATF audit. They went over everything with a fine tooth comb, were friendly and professional, found and pointed out a couple of tiny errors that we promised to fix permanently. It probably helped that this shop was as straight arrow as could be and the errors were from reasonable misunderstandings of procedure.

I was a gun dealer in New Jersey at one time. The BATF came when the Federal License was
going to expire and the N.J. State Police audited my books when the State License was getting
ready to expire. Once in a while the State Police would drop by just for the hell of it.

Zeke

HexHead said:

My LGS was visited by nine ATF agents for two weeks last year for a compliance inspection. They photographed the bound books, took a year's worth of 4473s for inspection and counted all 9,145 guns on the premises and compared them to the bound books.

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Wow. That's quite an LGS!

natman wrote:
They can be. When I worked at a gunshop we had an ATF audit. They went over everything with a fine tooth comb, were friendly and professional, found and pointed out a couple of tiny errors that we promised to fix permanently. It probably helped that this shop was as straight arrow as could be and the errors were from reasonable misunderstandings of procedure.

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I am gratified to see that the ATF agents seemed to recognize that the shop was substantially compliant and just needed some guidance in fully complying with the statute and regulations. This is a very different picture of Federal Agents than we often hear in the media.

Of course BATFE concentrates on stores that are known to be a source for crime guns; what else is new? In some cases, the licensee is straight, just has had some bad luck. But there are other licensees who skirt the law, even knowingly dealing in stolen guns, selling to known felons, helping criminals falsify papers, etc. Fortunately, those are few, but I would expect BATFE to concentrate on them; if an honest dealer gets inspected a lot he might reconsider his mode of business.

Jim

I have talked to gun dealers. The twenty years is a minimum retention time, there is no maximum.

Interaction with ATF depends a lot on local conditions. We are close to the state line, with legal and illegal movement of guns and different state laws on guns.
Based on what I have heard of others' experiences, locally there has been more ATF attention to gun shops and pawn shops, and FFLs cooperating on the illegal trafficking issues, especially pawnshops. People who stole guns in VA used to pawn them in TN, vice versa.
If they are trying to intedict criminals, I try not to take it as a personal insult.

I have learned Legal deals with the way things are and can be proven with evidence, like a law office or court, not the way we feel they are or wish they were, like a barber shop: that's General Gun Discussions .

hdwit to natman post #19: "This is a very different picture of Federal Agents than we often hear in the media."
Same for the picture of gun owners and gun dealers in the media. "Man bites dog" is news. It's an important issue, but we're verring off opening post.

hdwhit said:

I am gratified to see that the ATF agents seemed to recognize that the shop was substantially compliant and just needed some guidance in fully complying with the statute and regulations. This is a very different picture of Federal Agents than we often hear in the media.

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I suspect it's like law enforcement everywhere; there's lots of good ones, but the bad ones generate the publicity.

Veering back on subject, the shop had been open for decades. A couple of times I had to go up into the attic to research old 4473s or book entries. They had a boxes containing the bound books and forms for each year. There were a lot of boxes, but nowhere near the 40+ they would have had if they had kept every record since 1968. So somebody, sometime had gotten rid of the old ones.