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Mr. Luddite

On 11/16/2014 2:02 PM, Poco Loco wrote:
On Sun, 16 Nov 2014 13:17:43 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 11/16/2014 1:13 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 16 Nov 2014 11:40:27 -0600, Califbill
wrote:

Harrold wrote:
On 11/16/2014 12:02 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 15 Nov 2014 22:03:46 -0500, Roger wrote:

The way I see it is if a gun is used in a crime and still has a serial
number on it the first step would be for the police to contact the
manufacturer. From there they would know the dealer who sold who will
give them the buyers name. When they contact the buyer they will be
looking for the gun and I would prefer to know who I sold it to if I
didn't have it. If it was sold privately, I only have a bill of sale
and a copy of their drivers license (not required but that's what I
do). By transferring through a dealer we aren't forcing registration
but we a taking ourselves completely out of the loop.

Cops seldom even care where a gun came from. Maybe some day they might
but I am not sure what purpose it would actually serve.
If the gun is not fairly new, it will usually have "been around" and
there will be gaps in the ownership chain.
4473s are not required to be sent to DC and the dealer can destroy
them after 20 years. If the dealer goes out of business or simply
dies, his 4473s and his "bound book" may just languish in a dusty box
until his family throws them out..
The current system was purposely designed NOT to be a registry.

Let's take, for example, one of the guns Harry bought in Virginia.
Harry has the gun, there is a Maryland dealer with the 4473 in his
files but if Harry doesn't say who he is and know how to get in touch
with him, there is no way to find him. If you do, there will be a
direct link to the dealer in Virginia and the person who sold it to
him but if they can't locate that person, the trail goes cold again.
If they do find him and he can't locate the dealer he got it from you
are still dead in the water. Every private owner is a break in the
chain and there is no national database linking them.

That all assumes every transaction went through a FFL to begin with
and that those dealers and their records still exist.

I doubt more than 10% of the dealers I bought guns from over the years
are still in business or that the FFL holders are even alive.
Most were used when I got them (from a dealer) and the chance of
getting back to the manufacturer is nil.

I have some that were sold in a number of private transactions before
I bought them. They are total dead ends.

Maybe not. Ballistics checks on those guns might tie them to unsolved
crimes. I hope you keep your bills of sales for gun purchases.

I can not find a bill of sale for luggage I bought 6 months ago that went
bad. How are we to keep track of a bill of sale, even if we had one, for a
gun bought 50 years ago? I sold a Ruger RedHawk to a ,friend of a friend
in about 1970, and replaced with a Colt that was for sale on a note on the
wall of the Martinez gun range same year. Was not required to have FFL
transfer, receipt, or even to know someone in those days. You plopped down
pictures of dead presidents and took possession. Same way it is still
done in the inner city.

I doubt I could even come up with the name of the dealers I bought
most of my guns from and if you went there it might be a Starbucks.
I don't know of a single one of them that is still in business.
Even my 2 most recent purchases were from dealers run out of business
by Bass Pro Shop.
I don't have paperwork on any of them.

Another good reason for a state by state or national data base.

Only if he needs the paperwork.

Greg - do you need the paperwork?

That's fine John if all you are interested in is protecting your own ass.