Educate me, please.

[TimeRegained]

All the handguns I own have been bought NIB straight from the dealer. This has given me peace of mind for various reason.

Sometimes I've weighed the option of paying $200-$300 less and buying it used rather than new ($1,000 vs $800/$700) and then recently a thought crossed my mind:

Theoretically, someone can use a handgun in a crime and then sell it! It will change hands, it may change states and it's gone.

So, in the highly improbably event that one's guns are confiscated for any hypothetical reason, [how] can one [firearm] come back with a report indicating that it was used in a crime?

I know I am stretching this far and it's now at once abstract and academic.

Say one is convicted of domestic violence and guns are taken away by order of the judge, etc. And one of the used guns was matched to a crime that happened a few counties away. What will this involve in some CSI sense? And how can this be prevented other than just buying new?

Thank you.

 

[bikemutt]

I suppose buying any product that's not NIB could be risky. Buying property that smells fishy may be recalled by the authorities, guns included.

 

[WvHiker]

I'd just keep the receipt and not worry too much about it. If you buy at a LGS you frequent, they may be able to help you out with any history they may have, like who they got it from I'm the first place.

 

[TimeRegained]

Buying property that smells fishy may be recalled by the authorities, guns included.

Suppose that there's nothing fishy about it.

It could be any number of cases:

Responsible father owns a gun. 12-year-old kid shoots gun once in the backyard. It accidentally kills grandma in a house down the block. Connection is never made. Kid never knows.

Tony Soprano pawns the guns. Pawn shop puts it on GunBroker. GunBroker states the gun has hardly ever been fired (truth) [except for that one time it killed a mob boss].

 

[TimeRegained]

What I was thinking of [in the face of barrel ballistics] was DROS timelines...

For example, crime happened between 03/2001 - 04/2001

You took ownership on 12/2012...

Perhaps that's the only way to prove this hypothetical in one's favor?

 

[henschman]

The only way they would be able to match a gun to a particular crime is if they did a ballistic test on it, which would involve firing rounds through it, recovering them and the brass, and matching the patterns on them to bullets and brass recovered at the scene of a crime. It is not a quick or easy process, and is not something they would do unless they actually had some reason to suspect that it was used in a certain crime. Furthermore, there is no searchable database of firearm rifling, extraction, and breech face tooling patterns, like there is with human fingerprints, so the "ballistic fingerprint" would have to be directly compared to the evidence from that particular case to generate a match... it isn't something they would be able to take and put into a database and come up with a match to a case they didn't even suspect any involvement with.

Even then you should be able to prove that you didn't own the gun at that time... even if it was a private sale and you didn't get a receipt or the seller's name, you can get people you know (like a significant other) to testify that you didn't own it at that time.

Overall, it is such an unlikely set of events that it shouldn't really even be a factor affecting a rational person's buying decisions unless you actually have some reason to believe that it is a gun used in a crime.

 

[TimeRegained]

The only way they would be able to match a gun to a particular crime is if they did a ballistic test on it, which would involve firing rounds through it, recovering them and the brass, and matching the patterns on them to bullets and brass recovered at the scene of a crime. It is not a quick or easy process, and is not something they would do unless they actually had some reason to suspect that it was used in a certain crime. Furthermore, there is no searchable database of firearm rifling, extraction, and breech face tooling patterns, like there is with human fingerprints, so the "ballistic fingerprint" would have to be directly compared to the evidence from that particular case to generate a match... it isn't something they would be able to take and put into a database and come up with a match to a case they didn't even suspect any involvement with.

Thank you. Point well made.

 

[bikemutt]

Responsible father owns a [crossbow]. 12-year-old kid shoots [crossbow] once in the backyard. It accidentally kills grandma in a house down the block. Connection is never made. Kid never knows.

What if a car was used a bank robbery and successfully peddled to an unsuspecting car lot, etc.

It's mind bending to imagine how buying just about any used item might be troublesome.

 

[oneounceload]

You can "What If" yourself to the point that you won't own any guns. 99.99% of all of the what if scenarios are just a fleeting thought in someone's head. Buy from reputable sources on line or not. There is no legal requirements for massive paper work in most locales for FTF sales, nor should there be. If you are scared about your what-if scenarios, then continue to buy new and pay higher prices

 

[TimeRegained]

It's mind bending to imagine how buying just about any used item might be troublesome.

Very much so.

 

[TimeRegained]

If you are scared about your what-if scenarios, then continue to buy new and pay higher prices

Hardly the case here. I'm merely abstracting ideas here for my own edification.

Buying new guns because I like mine as virgins

 

[bikemutt]

Add this to the list: 3 of the quite nice revolvers I bought used this year were from city/county LE officers. Are those any cleaner? None of the sellers were even born when the guns were made so they didn't buy them new.

I feel that morality, ethics and the law requires wearing your "reasonable person" hat when engaging in private commerce, I don't know what more could, or should be expected.

 

[Frank Ettin]

You have two potential issues:

1. If the gun can be identified as one used in a crime, you could be connected with the crime. But this is a very remote concern, especially if you can somehow document how you acquired the gun.
   
   
2. If the gun was reported stolen, it's not legally yours. You can not acquire ownership of stolen property. You probably won't have to worry about being connected to the theft, but the gun will be taken from you; and you won't be compensated or get your money back.

 

[lemaymiami]

Buying/selling firearms.... Every one of my purchases or sales of sidearms were in my police years (1973 to 1995). Because I had job concerns I was always extra careful that none of them came back to bite me later. I carefully saved every bill of sale to show where any weapon was purchased along with a notation about I.D. used, etc (this was before the widespread concealed carry licensing came along in Florida). I also did the same thing with every gun sold (maybe six to ten pistols in 22 years).

The idea was fairly simple... guns in a practical sense will usually outlast my lifetime. I wanted solid proof of the exact dates that any weapon was in my control, and if sold -exactly who bought it and when.

I was probably overly cautious but in my era many cops in south Florida were indicted for one thing or other (particularly when Janet Reno was the head of our State's Attorney's Office before the Clinton era...).

 

[j1]

Have you ever bought a used car? Were you nervous? More cars kill people than guns do.

 

[smalls]

Have you ever bought a used car? Were you nervous? More cars kill people than guns do

This.
Funny story: a buddy bought an auction car (and didn't look at it good enough), and under the trunk carpet were pools of dried up blood. He thought for sure it was used in a murder until we found some deer fur as well.