Why the hidden serial #'s??

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dbshabo

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Can someone tell me why on the auction sites the sellers hide a portion of the serial no. of the guns they are selling? They usually list them something like this, 123xxx. I realize the first few no.'s will indicate the age of the gun but why not give out the full no.?

Shabo
 
dbshabo,

This is done because of the belief that if some person of disreputable intent could take a complete serial number with some faked documents (i.e. a private Bill of Sale) to the local authorites and say, "I had a firearm stolen some time back, this is it's serial number, this proves it was mine, and guess what.... I've found out who has it now.... Can you help me get it back???"......

Another paranoid reason is to prevent any "alphabet soup" bureaucrat authorities who cruise the Boards from taking down definitive info on who has what in their gun safes.

The chances of these types of things happening are admitedly rather remote, but this is the general idea. ..... and IF (BIG if) it ever did happen, it just might be a major hassle trying to prove it was yours and get people with Gov't paychecks poking their nose into your business before all was said and done. Why take the risk???

Just my thoughts on the issue,
Swampy
 
I see why people are concerned - maybe on a common firearm this may be an issue.

I started using "Valtro434" for a second online "alias". Pendragon is somewhat common in online games, but since I bought Valtro #434 in CA, it is registered to me - and I my BIL was there with me as a witness.

So if you see "Valtro434" playing Battlefield1942 or similar, its me :)
 
Why would somebody surfing the net need to know the full serial number? There is no legitemate reason to casually post serial numbers and there are several reasons for bad guys to want those numbers. Not worth the risk. Why not publish your social security number? Your drivers license number? How about credit card numbers? No, not the same thing, but there is something to be said for privacy.
 
The variant of the "false recovery" scenario is the "gun bigot grudge", wherein our foes take down serial numbers, report them as stolen, and then sic the cops on us, with the simple intent of causing legal woes.
 
I say bring it.

But like I said - I bought mine face to face from the mand that made it - and I had a witness.

I would not post my other #s...
 
The variant of the "false recovery" scenario is the "gun bigot grudge", wherein our foes take down serial numbers, report them as stolen, and then sic the cops on us, with the simple intent of causing legal woes.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought of that. Now that it's been mentioned, I have no trouble envisioning leftist extremists doing such a thing.
 
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