Can cops pull up # o/ guns you own?

[Thumper]

You're absolutely naive if you think every weapon that you had to fill out a form for is not in a database and as easily extractable as popping in your Drivers lic/SS #s...that's just the way it is.

Wrong. Amazing how you quote something as "fact" that is unequivocally incorrect.

For instance: The gunstore (Largest east of the Mississippi) I worked in, 4473's went into boxes that were locked into the owner's wife's walk in safe. Huge.

NICS is something else altogether, but if you had a carry permit (this was Ga.), NICS was never involved. Same anywhere.

There are literally tons of yellow forms out there the gubmint has never seen. I like it that way.

 

[Smoke]

gyp_c2

You're absolutely naive if you think every weapon that you had to fill out a form for is not in a database and as easily extractable as popping in your Drivers lic/SS #s...that's just the way it is

Sorry, you're wrong.

Where do you think all those records went to?

They are retained by the store. If and when the store ever closes, the 4473's are then sent to the ATF for bulk filing. Not entered into any computerized data base.

SOme states that have permits and seperate forms for gun purchases may have computerized databases of firearms, but TX doesn't, nor do the feds.

SMoke

 

[Tamara]

gyp_c2,

You're absolutely naive if you think every weapon that you had to fill out a form for is not in a database and as easily extractable as popping in your Drivers lic/SS #s...that's just the way it is. Whether it pops up on a traffic stop, I don't know....the rest is a fact...doesn't matter if you bought it at Sears or at the local shop down the way. Where do you think all those records went to? The dumpster out back?

Actually those records went into a big friggin' filing cabinet in the back of the store. Your average FFL may see a BATF agent once every two or three years or so. That agent spends five to eight hours in the shop, most of them in the company of an employee. He'd need to be pretty frickin' busy with his Minox or OCR to scan all those 4473's while the employee is on a smoke break or takin' a whizz.

Please do a smidgen of research on topics that you make such bold pronouncements about, h'mkay? Maybe ask an FFL what happens to those 4473's... (Preferably an FFL who doesn't constantly regale you with tales of black helicopters, the three thousand yard headshots he made in "The 'Nam" using ice bullets from a .50 cal, and how he picks up secret UN radio transmissions through his fillings. There's enough real scary government abuses out there without fabricating new ones out of whole cloth.)

 

[Tamara]

buzz_knox,

But he recalled what I had bought and it matched what he was told over the phone by the TBI folks.

The TBI must lurve him, 'cause they won't tell me crap over the phone when I call in a background check. It's all I can do to get them to take me off hold and give me an approval number.

Recall that even in Maryland, the Feds had to go gunshop-to-gunshop and thumb through recent 4473's looking for AR purchases. If they could've pulled 'em up with a keystroke, why go through the charade?

 

[spacemanspiff]

interesting.....so when the ffl called NICS when i bought my two steyr pistols, and they put down the wrong serial number, (which i later called the ffl to correct), i'm down in the records as having a m40 that i never did?

and since there is no record of the one i actually had,....dangit! had i known this i wouldnt have sold it! a papered gun that isnt really papered!

 

[Baba Louie]

Oh Yeah. Here in Las Vegas anyway all "concealable weapons" are registered w/ Sheriff's office when purchased from FFL (blue card given at time of sale).
You get stopped, dispatch will tell them "weapons" and up it comes on their SCOPE. They get a call to your house or a neighbors, dispatch tells them "Weapons", up it comes on SCOPE.

I took the LVMPD Citizen's Academy Class back in '91. I asked the cop on the ridealong about it. He entered my name, SSN, DOB and voila, the screen started scrolling. He said, "You must collect guns, huh." Doh!

Nationwide? I'm designing a house for one of the deputy Attorney General lawyer types here in LV and I asked him what he could and couldn't access from his computer at his state office. Answer... "after the Patriot Act... everything, and I mean everything. If you're in a DMV computer system anywhere in the US we can access whatever we need to do our job."

I sleep better at night I tell ya. If it's papered...

 

[Thumper]

interesting.....so when the ffl called NICS when i bought my two steyr pistols, and they put down the wrong serial number, (which i later called the ffl to correct), i'm down in the records as having a m40 that i never did?

Why in the world is your FFL giving serial numbers to NICS?

 

[Gordon Fink]

California has handgun registration, so this wouldn’t be at all surprising.

~G. Fink

 

[gyp_c2]

...don't need any more re=search, still believe it...Doesn't matter what they do in your store, do they get a # when I buy a firearm or not...'course they do...

...this is the lil' guy I should have put under the last post...you guys are too easy...g2

 

[Thumper]

don't need any more re=search, still believe it...Doesn't matter what they do in your store, do they get a # when I buy a firearm or not...'course they do...

I don't care if you believe in flying silver monkeys...you're still wrong.

Hint: Do you think the NICS check involves serial numbers or types of firearm?

 

[FPrice]

It Can Be Done...

in the People's Commonwealth of Massachusetts. EVERY firearms purchase is recorded on a Form FA-10, a copy of which is sent to the state for their database.

I remember a bit of a furor a few years ago when the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League publicized this and printed a sample letter which you could send to the state requesting copies of all the FA-10s they had on you. So many people did this that the commonwealth asked GOAL to stop this because of the workload it created.

 

[Thumper]

Yes, fprice...in that regard, you're right. In areas that have de facto registration, it would be possible, if not probable.

I was referring to most of the U.S. though.

Wasn't it Philly that got their butts sued off a few years back for keeping a database of gun owners?

 

[Tamara]

...you guys are too easy...g2

Pass the Reynold's Wrap, y'all; I need to make a yarmulke. Everything I've seen working in three different FFL's in two different states for the past ten+ years has been an hallucination. Guess I should've taken the blue pill...

 

[GigaBuist]

Tamara, Thumper, could you clear this up for me?

Hokay, the 4473 has on the backside slots for long gun vs handgun and areas to fill in the make, model and serial # of each firearm.

I'm gathering from your comments that NONE of this information is transfered to the NICS people over the phone, correct?

Semi-related... what about the driver's license number? I'm always asked for one when I make a purchase and that number goes on the back of the form. Never paid enough attention to figure out if it was transmitted or just kept for the FFL's records.

Thanks.

 

[Tamara]

I'm gathering from your comments that NONE of this information is transfered to the NICS people over the phone, correct?

Depends on the state.

In GA, all the state wants to know is "Long gun or handgun?" They don't even ask for any other data. In TN they want to know if the gun is stolen, so they ask the s/n to compare it against their stolen gun s/n database. I have it on good authority that the s/n info in TN is not retained in any way, shape, or form. How it works in your state is up to you and your fellow voters...

Incidentally, a brand new Charter 2000 Undercover we were trying to sell a couple weeks ago got a hit as being stolen in 1981. That was amusing. We sent it back to charter and said "Pick a new serial number for our gun, guys."

Semi-related... what about the driver's license number? I'm always asked for one when I make a purchase and that number goes on the back of the form.

Part of the stupid, inane, useless, and federally-mandated "background check" that Brady '93 makes you endure. Your DL# is the fastest way to make the NCIC regurgitate any naughty things you may have done to preclude you from buying a gun, such as having been busted with the leftover stems from a dime bag 20 years ago.

 

[Thumper]

Tam, do they still ask long gun or handgun since the beginning of the "long guns, also" checks? (Why is Nov. 22 of some year sticking in my head?)

Second question: Do you now have a junker Undercover with "Tamara" as the S/N?

 

[RED-DOG 40]

..."Everything I've seen working in three different FFL's in two different states for the past ten+ years has been an hallucination. Guess I should've taken the blue pill... "

.....Maybe to many of them thar toad stools with yer bar steak. ..

 

[Tamara]

Thumper,

Tam, do they still ask long gun or handgun since the beginning of the "long guns, also" checks?

Yup.

They don't want to give an 18 year-old a clear background check to exercise his constitutional right to buy a pistol, and wind up in court with the dealer saying "But NICS told me I could do it!"

 

[FedDC]

The answer is no because I have tried to find out prior to serving a warrant. Neither the local PD nor ATF had such a system. If such a system exists, it would be a local one that would be supported by a local agency, possibly state specific (CA)???

 

[BamBam-31]

Boy, am I glad that most knowledgeable responses indicate at least a high degree of improbability, if not outright impossibility, for under-the-table registration practices.

OT: I NEVER would have guessed "yarmulke" was spelled that way. I would have spelled it like Yamaha.

 

[tcsd1236]

I was in Turner's Outdoorsman in Pasadena the other day, and the salesman behind the counter was saying that when cops pull you over for a traffic stop, they can run your DL and find out how many guns you own.

BS. Some states indicate on the data reply if you have a CCW, but not what guns you have.

 

[Jeff White]

As anti gun as Illinois is, there is no database of what anyone owns. In fact hizzoner da mayor for life Richie Daley has sued the BATF to get access to the 4473s. We have FOID card, but all that is in that data base is if you have a valid FOID. When a dealer does a NICs check, they just specify long gun or handgun.

Jeff

 

[El Rojo]

The PRK does not have such a system. According to some poster here, Neveda does. I think in the PRK since most guns are illegal they don't bother with a database because they just assume you are not carrying a firearm or you have it illegally so they assume you are carrying. Yeah I know.

Typical paranoia.

 

[WilderBill]

If you only buy from friends and relatives, used, cash, with no paperwork whatsoever, they'd have a real hard time of it.

 

[one45auto]

Sounds like an urban legend to me.