Serial Number Story - true or not?

[Alchymist]

Ran across this on another forum ....anyone know for sure?

Marine Gunny told this tale...

He had an old Italian shotgun and (after checking into a new duty station,) the NIS and FBI showed up at his door to arrest his butt for a bank robbery. Funny thing was, on the date this robbery took place he was overseas.

Seems that the base required all service members living in government quarters to report all firearms belonging to the residents and stored in the govt. qtrs. Then the base conducted a check on the firearms.

Anyway, his shotgun was on the FBI's Hot List. And, as the serial number matched (whatever source they had), he, obviously, was the robber.

Of course Gunny claimed his innocence left-and-right.

Funny thing - when the Gun Control Act of 1968 went into effect, it required all firearms being imported into the US to have a serial number.

And that is what the manufacturer did - they followed the law and applied a serial number to the hundreds of guns they sent to the US.

Seems the GCA-68 was just a little vague. It didn't say anything about marking each shotgun with a different serial number. And all those guns had the same serial number applied.

 

[Oro]

Off on a few bases.

1) The GCA of '68 required unique S/N's for all firearms. The s/n's weren't unique before that - just by model, not by maker.

2) Probably "Gunny" embellished the story - they may have showed up to ask polite questions, but I doubt they showed up to have him hauled in irons down to the station as your story implies.

The story is a little shy of the facts and the practice. Sounds like just a nice story to tell...

 

[rbernie]

Not true:

http://www.atf.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/gca.htm

§ 178.92 Identification of firearms, armor piercing ammunition, and large capacity ammunition feeding devices.


(a)(1) Firearms. Each licensed manufacturer or licensed importer of any firearm manufactured or imported shall legibly identify each such firearm by engraving, casting, stamping (impressing), or otherwise conspicuously placing or causing to be engraved, cast, stamped (impressed) or placed on the frame or receiver thereof in a manner not susceptible of being readily obliterated, altered, or removed, an individual serial number not duplicating any serial number placed by the manufacturer or importer on any other firearm, and by engraving, casting, stamping (impressing), or otherwise conspicuously placing or causing to be engraved, cast, stamped (impressed) or placed on the frame, receiver, or barrel thereof in a manner not susceptible of being readily obliterated, altered or removed, the model, if such designation has been made; the caliber or gauge; the name (or recognized abbreviation of same) of the manufacturer and also, when applicable, of the importer; in the case of a domestically made firearm, the city and State (or recognized abbreviation thereof) wherein the licensed manufacturer maintains its place of business; and in the case of an imported firearm, the name of the country in which manufactured and the city and State (or recognized abbreviation thereof) of the importer.

This section shows no updates since originally written and passed.

 

[VA27]

One more error in the story: If you live on base, all personal firearms must be stored in the base armory.

 

[3pairs12]

How would they have been able to tell a shotgun was used in a bank robbery by the S/N? I think I'll call BS.

 

[Stirling XD]

How would they have been able to tell a shotgun was used in a bank robbery by the S/N?

I think this is a good question. Did the bank robber write his note on the receipt for the purchase of the shotgun and then leave it at the bank? (I did hear of one bank robber doing that with his own paystub.) Or maybe the surveilance camera has a high enough resolution to capture the serial number on the shotgun but no characteristics of the robber himself. If you said this was on an eppisode of CSI, I might believe it. But i'm not buying into this until I get some more convincing details.

 

[rcmodel]

Maybe hit the teller in the head with the gun, and it left a perfect serial number printed on her forehead?

Any good CSI hot chick could easily go from there.

rc

 

[Zundfolge]

How would they have been able to tell a shotgun was used in a bank robbery by the S/N?

Well because of the Ballistic Fingerprint Database ... see they got shot pellets from the crime scene, compared them to the shot pellets on file in the BFD and bammo, match.


See its clear to me that this "Gunny" here snuck back to the states to do his nefarious deeds using this shotgun.




First one of you yahoos that responds to this post thinking Its anything but pure sarcasm gets put on my ignore list.

 

[Alchymist]

Ha, if I saw it on CSI it would really be suspect......

 

[kimbershot]

no sn shotgun

my dad worked for emhart corp. which owned savage stevens. i was able to purchase a 311 12 ga. at the employee discount rate of 68.00 (list 85.00)-sounds cheap but was about 1/2 weeks pay. no serial number and no paper work. great gun--wish i had kept it. this all happened before gca of 68.
:banghead:

 

[3pairs12]

see they got shot pellets from the crime scene, compared them to the shot pellets on file in the BFD and bammo, match.

I thought they only registered the wads BFD.

 

[230RN]

There are lots of pre-68 guns running around naked, with no serial numbers

Thousands of Carcanos were rebarreled in Italy with no numbers and imported into the US.

Many Mossberg and other shotguns do not have numbers, and some other centerfire rifles (Savage, for example.)

Lots and lots and lots of old .22 Rifles don't have any.

About twenty years ago I got inspected by a Game Officer and he thought he really had something, since my .22 did not have a number. Took the rifle to his truck, spent twenty minutes on the radio, finally came back and handed it to me with an apology.


ETA: I don't think mgkdrgn, next post, is referring to my little tale, but to the original post.

 

[mgkdrgn]

This story has a distinctly bovine excrement odor to it.

 

[nicholst55]

One more error in the story: If you live on base, all personal firearms must be stored in the base armory.

Only if you live in the barracks/dorm; you're allowed to maintain your private firearms in your family quarters.

 

[Izaak Walton]

Well that explains why my ole Mauser has the same # as my ole Volkswagen!