Tracing Old Firearms

[Onward Allusion]

I was watching some show and an old revolver came up as as a possible murder weapon. The hero then goes on about running a trace...etc...etc... Got me wondering...

Assuming no registration in the locale, how would the ATF trace a 30 or 40 year old gun? How about a firearm manufactured overseas, imported to this country 30-40 years ago, and sold at business that no longer sells firearms.

How long must a FFL keep the 4473 forms? How about after they either go out of business or stop selling firearms (in the case of a sporting goods store like Sports Authority or now defunct Sportsmart)?

 

[Old Fuff]

The BATF&E has admitted that tracing firearms made before 1968 when the 1968 GCA was passed is a likely hit-or-miss thing with misses being more likely, unless the firearm later was transferred through an FFL to a new owner buying a used gun.

At state and local levels registration of rifles or shotguns was (and still is) very rare. Registration of handguns was not common outside of states with large urban populations. In these areas local law enforcement agencies can sometimes trace a gun to it's first owner, but not further unless subsequent owners also had to register a used gun that they purchased or otherwise obtained.

This is the bottom line consideration for proposals to enact universal background checks of private transfers. Gun control advocates hope that running these through an FFL will eventually result in a database that covers guns made before 1968. Only then can the hope to be able to create and enforce the more harsh regulations or prohibition they seek.

 

[Sam1911]

A dealer must keep 4473s for 20 years and then may destroy them. If the dealer goes out of business before then, any forms younger than that must be sent to the BATFE.

A 30-40 year old firearm would have a serial number and the maker would be identifiable. A trace would start by asking the maker where that gun was sent and those records would be quite likely to exist. After the first sale to a dealer, however, the likelihood of getting results on that trace would fall off pretty quickly. Each subsequent change of hands would be another multiplier of the odds against being able to find owners, identify buyers, etc.

Even if 10 years ago that gun was sold to a dealer and so went "on paper" so to speak, there would be no way of linking that 4473 record to previous ones at other dealers, including the original seller. Say Jim bought that revolver in 1973 from ABC Guns, in Leesburg, VA. He kept it 10 years and sold it to his pal Ed. Ed moved to Cincinnati five years later. Ed died in 1989 and his son, who lived in Arizona at the time, inherited the gun. Ed's son traded that gun back in to his local gun shop as part of payment on a new Winchester in 1993, and Bill bought it from that dealer on a 4473 later that year. The gun is stolen in 2000 and ends up found at a murder scene in 2015. All the trace is going to show is that S&W made that revolver in 1973 and sold it to a distributor who sold it to ABC Guns in VA. That's probably just where the trail ends. If by some chance the records from ABC Guns DO exist (let's say ABC went out of business in 1987 and sent in their records ... and somehow the clerks in the records vaults can dig up that one yellowed paper form from the millions and millions they've got stacked up in file boxes) all that gets them is Jim's name and address from forty-two years ago. The only possible way they'll ever trace that gun another step farther is if Jim is still alive and they can somehow find him, wherever he now lives, AND if Jim remembers to whom or where he sold that gun, and some info on how to locate that buyer...who's now dead...etc.

These things are possible, but take a ridiculous amount of man-power and luck to trace, and to what end? If the 2000 theft was reported, the serial number will probably turn up in a NCIC stolen gun search anyway, so all this tracing would be pointless. The police would then know who did own it 15 years before the murder, but that person had lost possession of it then, so knowing that gives them very little help.

 

[Red Wind]

^Good points. Canada has had handgun registration since 1934. According to the RCMP, not one crime has ever been solved using that database, except perhaps peripherally.

In 81 years.

"The government has admitted on three separate occasions . . . that since handgun registration was implemented in 1934, not one single crime in Canada has been solved using the national pistol registry."

--MP Garry Breitkreuz

 

[Sunray]

You can do anything on TV. For example, CSI Vegas was always going on about unregistered firearms when Nevada has no registry.
What you see on TV is not real.

 

[CLP]

A dealer must keep 4473s for 20 years and then may destroy them. If the dealer goes out of business before then, any forms younger than that must be sent to the BATFE.

A 30-40 year old firearm would have a serial number and the maker would be identifiable. A trace would start by asking the maker where that gun was sent and those records would be quite likely to exist. After the first sale to a dealer, however, the likelihood of getting results on that trace would fall off pretty quickly. Each subsequent change of hands would be another multiplier of the odds against being able to find owners, identify buyers, etc.

Even if 10 years ago that gun was sold to a dealer and so went "on paper" so to speak, there would be no way of linking that 4473 record to previous ones at other dealers, including the original seller. Say Jim bought that revolver in 1973 from ABC Guns, in Leesburg, VA. He kept it 10 years and sold it to his pal Ed. Ed moved to Cincinnati five years later. Ed died in 1989 and his son, who lived in Arizona at the time, inherited the gun. Ed's son traded that gun back in to his local gun shop as part of payment on a new Winchester in 1993, and Bill bought it from that dealer on a 4473 later that year. The gun is stolen in 2000 and ends up found at a murder scene in 2015. All the trace is going to show is that S&W made that revolver in 1973 and sold it to a distributor who sold it to ABC Guns in VA. That's probably just where the trail ends. If by some chance the records from ABC Guns DO exist (let's say ABC went out of business in 1987 and sent in their records ... and somehow the clerks in the records vaults can dig up that one yellowed paper form from the millions and millions they've got stacked up in file boxes) all that gets them is Jim's name and address from forty-two years ago. The only possible way they'll ever trace that gun another step farther is if Jim is still alive and they can somehow find him, wherever he now lives, AND if Jim remembers to whom or where he sold that gun, and some info on how to locate that buyer...who's now dead...etc.

These things are possible, but take a ridiculous amount of man-power and luck to trace, and to what end? If the 2000 theft was reported, the serial number will probably turn up in a NCIC stolen gun search anyway, so all this tracing would be pointless. The police would then know who did own it 15 years before the murder, but that person had lost possession of it then, so knowing that gives them very little help.

how are the rules of FFL's maintaining records or turning them over to the ATF not a de facto gun registry?

 

[Sam1911]

Well, we could call it whatever we want. It is a far-scattered and dispersed set of records of point-of-sale. That we can say for sure.

It isn't a registry in that doesn't compile anything or allow for searching. Imagine a phone book for New York City, wherein each name is assigned a phone number. Then cut the pages up so each entry (name/number) is one one little piece of paper. Then put piles of those tiny strips into thousands of buckets and scatter those buckets all over the city. Now, go to that registry and find my phone number. Good luck! Yeah, my information is registered in that system...well, unless I've lived there over 20 years in which case we've thrown out my little strip of paper anyway. Figuring out my number, or even if my number is still in the record now, is practically impossible.

It has no way of telling an investigator who owns what guns at any given time, doesn't update to follow sales of guns that happen after that one moment of sale.

It has no way of linking sales. (If a gun is sold 50 times through 50 dealers, or 50 times through ONE dealer, there is still no way to link one form 4473 to the next and track the chain of ownership.)

There is not a centralized clearinghouse of all records ... not even close, not by miles ... and the archives of whatever forms have actually been surrendered to the BATFE are not (or have not been, historically) in any format feasibly searched/scanned to locate any particular person, or gun. So, no BATFE agent could say "I want to know what guns Jim Smith of Grand Rapids, MI owns, or has purchased from dealers, at least" and get anything at all out of this "registry" that would tell him that. As pointed out in the passage you quoted, even if they have the gun in their hands they have a pretty low chance of being able to tell who (aside from the first buyer, maybe) has ever owned it, or owns it now.

If it is a registry, it is an extremely poor one.

 

[jmr40]

Unless someone lives in a place where guns are registered even a gun of fairly recent manufacture could be almost impossible to trace. The more times it changes hands, legally or not the harder it is to trace. There are guns less than 10 years old that would be hard to track down.

 

[Midwest]

You can do anything on TV. For example, CSI Vegas was always going on about unregistered firearms when Nevada has no registry.
What you see on TV is not real.

Clark County Nevada had handgun registration for 67 years. They finally scrapped it.

http://www.guns.com/2015/06/11/clark-countys-67-year-old-gun-registration-system-is-history/

"Implemented in 1948, when the area was frequented by notorious East Coast mobsters such as Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Clark County’s mandatory handgun registry survived a 1989 preemption law by being grandfathered, effectively making it the only place in Nevada that requires gun registration."


So what happens to that registration?

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/l...rm-blue-cards-now-state-controls-registration




"Another point of confusion for many in the county is what will happen to the current database of registered firearms.

Metro’s director of intergovernmental services Chuck Callaway said the department will keep the current list for one year, starting from the day the bill was signed.

After that year, Callaway said, the database will be deleted."
.

 

[berettaprofessor]

and the archives of whatever forms have actually been surrendered to the BATFE are not (or have not been, historically) in any format feasibly searched/scanned to locate any particular person, or gun.

That brings up an interesting question, Sam. Does anyone here on THR have any knowledge of where these surrendered records end up? At one place in a dark, dank basement? (by now it must be a pretty big room)....scattered all over the country at multiple basements?.....a salt mine somewhere?.....Area 51?

 

[jerkface11]

I picture the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

[grter]

One thing you can almost be sure of is once any government gets a hold of information it is very likely that they will never relinquish it.

They may say they destroyed the records and for all intents and purposes, to the average persons they may very well be just as good as expunged, but there is always some agency whether secrete or not that will collect and hold the information for study, reference, or who knows what.

Thats just the way the cookie crumbles. Am I saying absolutely everything is kept on file, no because there are no such thing as absolutes, however anyone can figure the answer is if they find out they will very likely keep a record of it.

The good thing about no registration is that it almost guarentees that keeping track of gun owners is at the very most a hit and miss proposition if one day they decide that human rights, freedoms and libertys to pursue happiness are old outdated concepts.

 

[Sam1911]

Does anyone here on THR have any knowledge of where these surrendered records end up?

I know where they're supposed to be sent:

ATF National Tracing Center
Out-of-Business Records Center
244 Needy Road Martinsburg, WV

After that, and where the boxes of paperwork are filed away? No idea.

 

[morcey2]

You can do anything on TV. For example, CSI Vegas was always going on about unregistered firearms when Nevada has no registry.
What you see on TV is not real.

One of the CSI shows (maybe CSI Poughkeepsie) had a laser boresighter at a crime scene. The dialog included the brilliant line (paraphrased): "When this is on the gun, the bullet hits right where the laser-dot is. We've got a trained sniper on our hands."

That's why I don't watch TV.

In utah, pretty much any gun that has changed hands from the original purchaser is next to impossible to trace.

Matt

 

[DeepSouth]

Does anyone here on THR have any knowledge of where these surrendered records end up?

I know where they're supposed to be sent:

ATF National Tracing Center
Out-of-Business Records Center
244 Needy Road Martinsburg, WV

After that, and where the boxes of paperwork are filed away? No idea.

Isn't there supposedly a law keeping them from using "electronic filing"
I've heard that before but honestly don't know. If it's true then linking a gun to a FFL would be nearly impossible without help from the manufacture.

 

[Twiki357]

I would like to take this discussion one step further. So far all the discussion is about paper 4473s. I’ve never come across this, but I understand that there is also an electronic version where the purchaser enters the 4473 information on line. Would someone like to explain who and how those BC records are maintained and by whom?

 

[Snyper]

Would someone like to explain who and how those BC records are maintained and by whom?

They use the computer to enter the info and then print out the forms
It's really no different from the old system other than not filling out the form by hand

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-617075.html&amp&

 

[Onward Allusion]

Appears to be a pretty tedious process. A little bit of a roll of the dice and a whole lotta of grunt work.

 

[dogtown tom]

Twiki357 I would like to take this discussion one step further. So far all the discussion is about paper 4473s. I’ve never come across this, but I understand that there is also an electronic version where the purchaser enters the 4473 information on line. Would someone like to explain who and how those BC records are maintained and by whom?

e4473 is form filling software only, it doesn't need or use an internet connection.

After the buyer completes the form, the dealer prints out the 4473 and files it.

 

[wally]

Appears to be a pretty tedious process. A little bit of a roll of the dice and a whole lotta of grunt work.

Not really, Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle was traced to him the next day with normal business records when the police simply called Klien's and asked who had purchased it.

Tracing "crime guns" would likely work better if there wasn't this adversarial system that we now have had forced upon us.

Police have generally had no problems tracing where the "tactical gear" or "high capacity" magazines were purchased by the various mass killers in the news recently simply by using normal business records despite there being no serial numbers on the items. Why would it matter? its evidence, possibly of pre-meditation.

 

[Sam1911]

Certainly a very valid point and perhaps one that a lot of folks overlook.

Yes, there is a record of you buying that gun and it is stored away in a paper file cabinet in a gun dealer's shop. With some legwork the police could probably figure out that you own it, if they have any reason to be looking for it.

But there are LOoooOTs of other records around which are far easier to trace than that, including your credit card records. And, considering broader (hopefully fanciful) worries about big government snooping on gun owners, mountains of other sorts of electronic records of just about everything you might have purchased, groups you belong to, sites you post on, etc., etc.

If the biggest bogey man we're all most afraid of is the terror that someday the BATFE will scan through the files and show up at our house demanding we surrender our guns, the availability (or lack thereof) of 4473 forms with your name on them will probably be of only superficial value to them.

The guy that refuses to buy new guns and/or from dealers because he doesn't want his name on 4473 forms probably has pages of CC entries for ammo, powder, primers, shooting supplies, and range fees. Probably is listed in the ranks of NRA members, probably has his gov't issued carry permit, probably posts on shooting forums, probably is a member of his local gun club. And if not, well, he's a lonely dude who doesn't get much shooting time in!

 

[MedWheeler]

e4473 is form filling software only, it doesn't need or use an internet connection.

After the buyer completes the form, the dealer prints out the 4473 and files it.

I just did this for the first time last month while buying a shotgun at a Gander Mountain store. I actually found it a little more tedious than the paper form only because I'm so used to the latter, but it's true that all the program did was "fill out" the hard copy for me. I still had to sign it.

 

[CapnMac]

Screenwriters are told to "write what they know"--and it's clear that they don't know near as much as they think they do.
On CSIodunk they cancan just have an actor say "Go find me all of CapnMac's gun records!"
Well, in my thirty years of buying guns, they'll have a task.
That's thrity years.
In nin different Counties (not all of whichwere my county of residence)
And, in oly tow cases are the vendors even still open for business (and one of those shut down their FFL).
And, that does not include the F2Fs, either.

Color me observant, but not afraid.

 

[HankB]

Isn't there supposedly a law keeping them from using "electronic filing" I've heard that before but honestly don't know. If it's true then linking a gun to a FFL would be nearly impossible without help from the manufacture.

If there is such a law, unless it establishes penalties (prosecution, trial, fines, prison time, etc.) for those government bureaucrats who violate it . . . it is a law utterly without meaning. As are so many of the laws which require government or its agents to do something. (Or . . . to abstain from doing something.)

I'm curious . . . does anyone know if most FFLs actually DO purge their 4473's after 20 years, or do they hang on to them indefinitely just to be "good" citizens in case someone from .gov comes looking?

 

[JSH1]

Here is some information on tracing: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-guns-get-traced

The part I found interesting:

ATF used to put these documents on microfilm. Now, the agency scans them.

"We have to have seven scanners running 16 hours a day or we fall behind," Houser says. But even once the pages are scanned, Houser points out, they're still not searchable. They're just making a digital image.

"The only difference between the digital images and searching the boxes is that now somebody can sit at a TV screen, and they will flip through page by page. It's not searchable by anybody's name," he says.

With so much paperwork flooding in — there's a backlog — about 3,000 boxes right now are waiting to be scanned.

"When we pass 10,000 boxes here, GSA [the General Services Administration], who owns the building, warned us that the floor will collapse," Houser says. "So what we've had to do is rent shipping containers, and then we put those out in the parking lot, and we have to send people out into the shipping containers to search boxes."

Houser figures that 90 percent of the time, ATF can complete an urgent trace within 24 hours. For a routine trace, it might take a week.​