JavaScript is disabled
Our website requires JavaScript to function properly. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser settings before proceeding.
Messages
14,959
Reactions
27,540
When one sells (or buys) a gun through a private sale does the BGC establish a record of the sale? For example - I sell a gun and meet with the buyer at an FFL for the transfer and all is well. Buyer later sells the gun FTF without accomplishing A BGC. Non BGC Buyer later sells the gun and DOES meet with the buyer at an FFL for the transfer - does my name 'show up' as the last legal BGC accomplished?
 
I'll take a wag at this.
Yes it does establish a record of sale. I have never done it but I presume there would be a record of the buyers, sellers, FFLs, name and address a reference to the back ground check and serial number check, a description of the gun and its serial, and the date of sale, copies for everyone.

So the gunm changes hands several times after you sell it or becomes stolen or whatever and is found at a crime scene or in the possession of a felon or some such thing and now the Law wants to no who owns the gun or who sold the gun.

I won't speak to all states but here in OR there is supposedly no gun registration or database of who owns what, so lets say the gun is a Glock. Law enforcement would go to Glock with the serial # and ask who they sold the gun to, Glock would say Joe Blows Gun Shop (A FFL), then Joe would say he sold the Glock to You (assuming you are the original owner) and the Law would come to look you up bhecause they would have no knowledge that you later sold the gun Via a FFL to someone else because they aren't suppose to have that record.

Of course you would just say you sold it to some schlub and if you kept the paperwork that would be the end of it.

I'm not a lawyer or a cop so this is all just my understanding of things.
 
Of course you would just say you sold it to some schlub and if you kept the paperwork that would be the end of it.

I'm not a lawyer or a cop so this is all just my understanding of things.

I am not sure, but I do not think the BGC laws require you to keep the paperwork.

I think that the 4473 in the FFL dealer's records would be what they would rely on - but the FFL does not have to turn those in and does not have to keep them forever either - IIRC.
 
I am not sure, but I do not think the BGC laws require you to keep the paperwork.

I think that the 4473 in the FFL dealer's records would be what they would rely on - but the FFL does not have to turn those in and does not have to keep them forever either - IIRC.

===========================
Good points, I guess what I was most trying to convey is if your the 3rd owner of a gun and all transfers/sales have been done through an FFL that it would take a bit of legwork by the Law to sort through all that.

The other thought I have is although I do keep bill of sales for things like motorcycles, guns, cars, if the law shows up on my front porch asking about a gun I once owned that is now connected to a crime and they are investigating me in relationship to a crime, I would most likely shut up and lawyer up and not agree to produce any documents or anything else to the Law in fear of somehow saying the wrong thing or otherwise incriminating myself even though I am completely innocent.
 
Wow. It's almost like these BS laws just create a bunch of ambiguity and questions while turning ordinary citizens into criminals.
 
When one sells (or buys) a gun through a private sale does the BGC establish a record of the sale? For example - I sell a gun and meet with the buyer at an FFL for the transfer and all is well. Buyer later sells the gun FTF without accomplishing A BGC. Non BGC Buyer later sells the gun and DOES meet with the buyer at an FFL for the transfer - does my name 'show up' as the last legal BGC accomplished?

No because you have to transfer the gun to an FFL in order to get the BGC done. The FFL isn't required to have a BGC to receive the gun. The BGC is the 4473 form which the buyer fills out, the seller listed will be the FFL. If something happens down the road the feds trace the gun back to the last FFL.

Make certain you collect the money with bill of sale before you transfer the gun (do the BGC), that way if the buyer suddenly doesn't have the funds he doesn't legally own your gun. This is mostly for FFLs or people accepting credit cards as payment.

someone correct me if Im wrong.
 
An FFL is required to keep the record of a successful purchase for twenty years. However, the FFL does not forward those records to the ATF or any other agency (save for pistol sales in WA state). Thus, although there would be a record of the manufacturer having sold a gun to a dealer and then that dealer making that first sale to an individual, if that gun never touches a dealer's inventory for the rest of its life, there is no practical way to track it. In a private party sale in WA, the record of the transaction exists with the dealer that did the BGC, but law enforcement doesn't know which dealer did the BGC and therefore doesn't know where to look (unless someone tells them or they have some other independent information).
 
I have a hard time believing all of the private data asked for by NICS when doing the transfer is not logged on a hard drive during the back ground check.
 
Hypothetical situation here....

Let's say Bob goes to an Oregon gun shop and decides to buy a used Glock. The Oregon gun shop runs a background check on Bob with the serial number of the used Glock with it through the Oregon State Police, and Bob gets approved for the purchase. So by most folks reasoning that used Glock is now "registered" to Bob in Oregon right?

While waiting for the background check to pass on his used Glock, Bob spots a cherry Colt 1911 that he would much rather have. Bob goes to the sales guy and says, "sorry man, I really want this Colt instead of the Glock". Sales guy says, ok, but we have to do the paperwork and background check again for the Colt. Bob then goes through the background check process again and gets cleared and goes home with his bubblegumin' Colt.

So now, according to most peoples' thinking, the state of Oregon thinks Bob bought a used Glock AND a Colt when in fact he only took possession of the Colt, not the used Glock.

Not really any way for the state of Oregon to prove that Bob owns a Glock and a Colt unless Bob, or the gun shop volunteers that information to the state. All Oregon can say is that Bob was approved to purchase a used Glock and a
Colt.

I guess the main thing behind my rambling here is that Bob has good taste in guns and that Colts are better than Glocks and that Oregon does not know what you have for sure.o_O:confused:;):eek::cool:
 
Hypothetical situation here....

Let's say Bob goes to an Oregon gun shop and decides to buy a used Glock. The Oregon gun shop runs a background check on Bob with the serial number of the used Glock with it through the Oregon State Police, and Bob gets approved for the purchase. So by most folks reasoning that used Glock is now "registered" to Bob in Oregon right?

While waiting for the background check to pass on his used Glock, Bob spots a cherry Colt 1911 that he would much rather have. Bob goes to the sales guy and says, "sorry man, I really want this Colt instead of the Glock". Sales guy says, ok, but we have to do the paperwork and background check again for the Colt. Bob then goes through the background check process again and gets cleared and goes home with his bubblegumin' Colt.

So now, according to most peoples' thinking, the state of Oregon thinks Bob bought a used Glock AND a Colt when in fact he only took possession of the Colt, not the used Glock.

Not really any way for the state of Oregon to prove that Bob owns a Glock and a Colt unless Bob, or the gun shop volunteers that information to the state. All Oregon can say is that Bob was approved to purchase a used Glock and a
Colt.

I guess the main thing behind my rambling here is that Bob has good taste in guns and that Colts are better than Glocks and that Oregon does not know what you have for sure.o_O:confused:;):eek::cool:

The gun stores make you pay for the gun first, then do the background check.
 
In a private party sale in WA, the record of the transaction exists with the dealer that did the BGC, but law enforcement doesn't know which dealer did the BGC and therefore doesn't know where to look (unless someone tells them or they have some other independent information).

this is why Oregon has all of their BGCs go thru the OSP; so that they will have a record of the transaction and know who bought what and when.
 
I have a hard time believing all of the private data asked for by NICS when doing the transfer is not logged on a hard drive during the back ground check.

It is almost impossible that it would not be logged somewhere and that data backed up.

When the government says that they keep no record of something that 'crosses their desk', you can be certain that they are lying.
 
An FFL is required to keep the record of a successful purchase for twenty years. However, the FFL does not forward those records to the ATF or any other agency (save for pistol sales in WA state). Thus, although there would be a record of the manufacturer having sold a gun to a dealer and then that dealer making that first sale to an individual, if that gun never touches a dealer's inventory for the rest of its life, there is no practical way to track it. In a private party sale in WA, the record of the transaction exists with the dealer that did the BGC, but law enforcement doesn't know which dealer did the BGC and therefore doesn't know where to look (unless someone tells them or they have some other independent information).

The state can always trace the gun to the last FFL.
The FFL is required by law to turn over the records if they close shop or sell the buisness.

So if you buy a gun and 19 years later the shop closes the feds have your record forever.
 
Oregon law states that your personal firearm BGC"s records are deleted every 4 years and 8 months.

They might actually delete the records from a DB, but as a software engineer with many years of experience in business apps, I can guarantee that the data is most assuredly backed up somewhere, probably multiple places. There are also most likely multiple apps that take a copy of the data and run reports and analytics on that data, and that data and the reports/etc. are also backed up.

When data like this gets into a large network like the state has, there are so many copies of the data floating around that even if the IT dept. made a diligent and concerted effort to 'delete' every copy, they would most likely fail. If nothing else, someone who takes a raw copy of the data can generally copy it off the network onto a flash drive and then it is there forever.

Also, data is rarely actually deleted, whether in a DB or on storage medium - it is just marked for deletion and at best the space that it once occupied is reused for new data to overwrite it. Recovering that data before it is overwritten is not hard - it is just a matter of getting to it in time. Newer storage medium like solid state drives even more so (it is very hard to actually securely delete data on a flash drive or SSD because of the way the media works).

The safest assumption is that there are multiple copies of that data in the hands of people who would like to use it for purposes that violate our rights.
 
The state can always trace the gun to the last FFL.
The FFL is required by law to turn over the records if they close shop or sell the buisness.

So if you buy a gun and 19 years later the shop closes the feds have your record forever.

Smaller shops sometimes report that their records were "destroyed in a fire".

Large brick and mortar retailers with an FFL just the opposite.
 
It is almost impossible that it would not be logged somewhere and that data backed up.

When the government says that they keep no record of something that 'crosses their desk', you can be certain that they are lying.
If I remember correctly, someone accused the Beltway Snipers of using an AK74. At that time I was admin at another fireams site and one of our members who live in that area said the feds knocked on his door asking about his AK. There were other reports of this as well.

Eventually it was found the guy used an AR, but still the question begs how the feds had access to 'deleted' information :rolleyes:
 

Upcoming Events

Teen Rifle 1 Class
Springfield, OR
Kids Firearm Safety 2 Class
Springfield, OR

New Resource Reviews

New Classified Ads

Back Top