Shotgun Registration Washington State

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Pyros9

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I recently purchased a .410 shotgun and was very surprised to find out that I had to register it. I had to fill out a form with my personal info on it, and a call was made to someone just like when I purchased a hand gun.

Can anyone tell me what this was? I thought we only had to register hand gun purchases?
 
Was the form a 4473 and was the call a NICS call? Those are done anytime you purchase any gun from a dealer. That's not really registration, although, some would argue it is. That's federal law. The laws in Washington may vary.
 
Thanks Guys....

I don't remember the form number, but I think the call was NICS.

I'm thinking I would be on the side of the argument that says it is registration. The serial number of the gun is on the paperwork with my info. Sounds like registration to me....
 
The reason some (myself among them) would say it's not registration in any meaningful sense is that you are free to sell or give the gun to a private party or melt it into a paperweight if you like with no record required. The only thing that has been registered is the FFL transaction--i.e. that you possessed it at one time. There is an actual registration process in Washington, but it's voluntary and rarely used.
 
Yeah I lived in WA for about 10 years before moving to AK, you filled in a 4473. There is no registration for anything I've bought. Hell I didn't even know there was a voluntary scheme until it was mentioned above. Only way around it is to buy privately.

For handgun purchases, from dealers, the sale is put through the local sheriff, and if there's no "you can't sell it" in 5 days then you can pick it up. For all my handgun purchases, none of the dealers had got a response from the local Sheriff's dept. However this is extra to NICS.

Now NICS just gets your name, sex, age, date of birth, and state of residence, then they'll come back with a proceed, hold (for 3 days while a possible match from the NCIC is checked) or denied (you're a known positive match in the NCIC), if proceed (either immediately or belatedly) then there's a transaction number given that must be recorded on the 4473. The 4473 also records the firearm serial number, but the 4473 stays with the FFL, and isn't sent to the ATF (unless the FFL stops trading). The information given to NICS must by law be destroyed before the start of the next business day. The only time the ATF might look at a 4473 is during an audit, or if a trace is being run on a serial number, then they only get the 4473 that records that sale.
 
I'm thinking I would be on the side of the argument that says it is registration.
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Actually, there isn't an argument to choose sides in. The 4473 form ISN'T registration. As pointed out, the info goes NOWHERE but in the dealer's filing cabinet.

And if you don't like him keeping a page with your name on it, buy face-to-face from someone who's not a dealer. No paperwork, cash & carry.

-Sam
 
If you really believe that the info on the 4473 is destroyed and goes nowhere I have a bridge in the Sahara Desert that I'm sure you would love to buy. FRJ
 
If you really believe that the info on the 4473 is destroyed and goes nowhere I have a bridge in the Sahara Desert that I'm sure you would love to buy. FRJ
Click to expand...

If you really worry that by filling out a 4473 you're in the government's crosshairs, I have an industrial-sized roll of tinfoil I'm sure you could whip up into a fine piece of headgear. :rolleyes:

-Sam
 
Put away the tin foil hats folks because 4473s are not registration. If there was registration then there would have to be documented policies in place everytime you sold or bought a gun in a private sale or a gun show. All the 4473 can be used for in the future is to see who the actual purchser of a specific firearm was.

Shoot Sam you beat me to the tinfoil hot joke.

The 4473 is not destroyed. It also does not go anywhere.
 
earlthegoat2 said:
Put away the tin foil hats folks because 4473s are not registration
Click to expand...
All the 4473 can be used for in the future is to see who the actual purchser of a specific firearm was.
Click to expand...

So does anyone else find it rather odd that these two sentences would appear in such close proximately to each other?!? :scrutiny:

So, let me get this straight... a law enforcement agency can take a serial number of a gun and go to the manufacturer with that serial number. The manufacturer can tell them that they delivered that serial numbered gun to xyz gun shop.

Then leo can go to xyz gunshop and look up the serial number in their bound book, and get the 4473, and come knocking on my door asking to see serial number 123 gun...

If that isn't registration, I don't know what is. It may not be complete registration as far as tracking what I do with that gun, but it is at least a partial registration. The only reason the word registration isn't associated with the 4473 is because the liberal politicians know there would be no way they could push that down the throats of the 2A supporters.

But, like others have said, if you don't like the little bit of registration that does occur with the 4473, you can buy in a private sale, in most states, and avoid it.
 
If that isn't registration, I don't know what is. It may not be complete registration as far as tracking what I do with that gun, but it is at least a partial registration. The only reason the word registration isn't associated with the 4473 is because the liberal politicians know there would be no way they could push that down the throats of the 2A supporters.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It's registration with built-in inefficiencies and weaknesses in the system, but it's still registration.

Well no, that's not true either.

If an FFL doesn't renew his license for whatever reason the 4473's are sent back to ATF.
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Also true.

So, your name and information on that form is either sitting in an FFL's place of business in a bound book, which the ATF can demand to see at any time, or it's sitting at the ATF itself. Even if it's at the FFL's place of business, the FFL is effectively storing it for the ATF. NOBODY else will ever look at it, and the ATF can look at it whenever they want. It effectively belongs to the ATF.

Personally, I like the inefficiencies built into the system. However, since the form doesn't get shredded after the NICS check comes back "thumbs-up", it's registration.
 
ersonally, I like the inefficiencies built into the system. However, since the form doesn't get shredded after the NICS check comes back "thumbs-up", it's registration.
Click to expand...

A couple of times in the last few years ATf has asked about "modernizing" their 4473 collection and putting it into a database rather than keeping the paperwork.

They have been shut down so far but I suspect it's just a matter of time.

Hmm, a searchable online database of 4473's..... Nope, that's not registration either I suppose?
 
Hmm, a searchable online database of 4473's..... Nope, that's not registration either I suppose?
Click to expand...

Combine that with "closing the gun show loophole", i.e. no private sales, all transactions legally have to go through an FFL like they do in California, and you have complete firearms registration without ever having to call it that. If your gun's not in the database, under your name, you have committed a crime.

We are already very close to exactly those two events, and they would be less politically unpopular than the Senate Health Care bill that JUST PASSED under the cover of darkness.

But people call it "tinfoil hat" paranoia to point that out?
 
Then why is there not new paperwork submitted to the ATF or whoever everytime a FTF or private sale is transacted. I know you have to do this for handguns in MI but you dont have to do it all the time for all guns in all places. That is registration.
 
Because that's the only flaw in their BS system.
Listen, guys, I'm the least "conspiracy-theorist" guy I know, and I am SURE there is a very good record of gun sales with the ATF, and it is only a very small step from there to full registration.
I've been in the Navy for thirteen years, and I can't get a notebook out of the supply system without a hookup from a buddy, so I have a hard time swallowing most conspiracies.
However, the ATF CERTAINLY HAS a list of all of our FFL transfers. Period.
 
So what it means, to those of you who are invoking tin foil hat aspersions, is that it is a partial registration, complete for those of us who live in places like California, and incomplete elsewhere, where only the transactions conducted through a dealer are registered.
 
Because that's the only flaw in their BS system.
Click to expand...

And because of that flaw it makes it impossible to trace any gun directly to the current owner. With full registration you would know who that person is right now.

I agree they are only a few steps away from full registration but it is not there yet.
 
Texas Rifleman;

Well no, that's not true either.

If an FFL doesn't renew his license for whatever reason the 4473's are sent back to ATF.
Click to expand...

That is not quite true either.

After an FFL ceases operation and surrenders his license, he is required to maintain on file all 4473's for twenty years or at his option he may forward them to the ATF. I have no proof, but my understanding is the ATF destroys these records after a twenty year holding period.
 
Schutzen said:
After an FFL ceases operation and surrenders his license, he is required to maintain on file all 4473's for twenty years or at his option he may forward them to the ATF. I have no proof, but my understanding is the ATF destroys these records after a twenty year holding period.
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From ATF:


When an FFL discontinues business, the FFL must send their firearms transactions records to the National Tracing Center (NTC). The NTC receives an average of 1.2 million out-of-business records per month and is the only repository for these records within the United States.

Records can be mailed to the NTC or, alternatively, they may be delivered to your local ATF Office in order to comply with laws for surrendering records (which include all bound log books/acquisition & disposition books and computer printouts, ATF Form 4473’s, Theft/Loss Reports, Multiple Sales Reports, and Brady forms
Click to expand...

Federal Law reflects this in 18 USC 923. There is no option for the FFL to keep the records. He has 30 days to turn them over.
There is no requirement in the law to destroy the records either, not sure where you got that one.

(4) Where a firearms or ammunition business is discontinued and
succeeded by a new licensee, the records required to be kept by
this chapter shall appropriately reflect such facts and shall be
delivered to the successor. Where discontinuance of the business is
absolute, such records shall be delivered within thirty days after
the business discontinuance to the Attorney General.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
If you really worry that by filling out a 4473 you're in the government's crosshairs, I have an industrial-sized roll of tinfoil I'm sure you could whip up into a fine piece of headgear.
Click to expand...

Post of the Week Award goes to Sam1911!
 
Pyros9 said:
I don't remember the form number, but I think the call was NICS.

I'm thinking I would be on the side of the argument that says it is registration. The serial number of the gun is on the paperwork with my info. Sounds like registration to me....
Click to expand...
And the paperwork goes exactly .... nowhere. It stays with the dealer for 20 years, and is then destroyed. If the dealer goes out of business before then, it goes to a big government wharehouse very like the one at the end of "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" to be lost in perpetutity.

The info that goes to NICS has -nothing- in it about the gun, it's all about you ... and they already know about you.
 
Two questions, please, if anyone can answer:

First:
What does this mean?
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00000923----000-.html

(5)
(A) Each licensee shall, when required by letter issued by the Attorney General, and until notified to the contrary in writing by the Attorney General, submit on a form specified by the Attorney General, for periods and at the times specified in such letter, all record information required to be kept by this chapter or such lesser record information as the Attorney General in such letter may specify.



Second:
Where in the statute does it specify that an FFL has to keep the 4473 for only 20 years and then they can be destroyed?

Thanks to any that can help.
 
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