F2F sale questions and owner dying

[jeepmor]

Okay, let me paint the picture first. This just happened to my folks who had one of their renters die on the spot of a heart attack, so here goes.

1. Guy had several guns, about 10 or so.
2. Guy died at work of massive heart attack.
3. Guy had zero living relatives to pass his belongings onto, no will, etc, nobody left in his family, he's the last one.
4. Government comes in and takes over estate.

My mom was visited at the office the other day by two .gov officials handling the estate. They were looking for two missing firearms the guy owned. Okay, so they do keep a record even though, to my knowledge, that's not legal. My naivete to the actual law aside. They asked my Mom if she had the guns or might happen to know where they were. Her answer, "no", he was our renter for a long time, nothing more.

The .gov guys answer that "If you do have them, you need to know that we now flag them as stolen and if they come through a gunshop or what have you (an FFL), they are flagged as stolen and the consequences of that will fall upon the person trying to sell them."

Now, how can we all be selling guns face to face legally and this crap be happening. Was the government trying to intimidate my mom with BS, or are they telling the truth? Please elaborate and provide legal references. My main concern is what is actually true? From my perspective, F2F sales are legal which means the government guys were lying and were trying to intimidate my mother.

 

[garymc]

I think what you're saying is absolutely legal and very realistic in the state of Stumptown.

 

[jeepmor]

Stumptown is Portland, Oregon.

My question is, if you buy a gun f2f from someone and they die like this, do you now own an illegal gun?

 

[mnrivrat]

Well - On the surface this sounds strange in a couple ways. FTF sales are NOT illegal on a Federal level, and as you mention, registration is also not a part of Federal law. (no listing should exist)

How did they know that 2 were missing ? Perhaps they found some leger of his inventory . Perhaps the guy sold them and forget to scratch them off his sheet.
Any way you look at it though (outside of local law requirements) it seems the visit would be uncalled for . Particularly the warning part .

 

[Bubbles]

The .gov guys answer that "If you do have them, you need to know that we now flag them as stolen and if they come through a gunshop or what have you (an FFL), they are flagged as stolen and the consequences of that will fall upon the person trying to sell them."

Bravo sierra. We FFL's have no way to run used firearms through NCIC; we only report Handgun, Long Gun, or Other to NICS. The gun being transferred could be hotter than a two dollar hooker and not raise any red flags.

 

[PCCUSNRET]

Did he have an FFL? If so they may be going by his logbook.

 

[Frank Ettin]

There are some missing pieces of information here:

[1] Are there in fact two firearms that were at one time owned by the decedent which are now not part of the property turned over to the government department taking control of his estate?

[2] How does the government agency who is now taking over the estate of the decedent know there are two firearms once owned by the decedent which are not among the property turned over?

[3] Does the OP's mother or someone else known to the OP's mother actually now have those firearms?

[4] If so, how did she or someone else known to her acquire those firearms?

It's possible that answers to those questions could possibly prove troublesome or embarrassing for the OP's mother or someone else. If so, these are not matters that should be discussed on Internet.

Closed.