https://freebeacon.com/guns/bi...e-billion-gun-sales/

When a licensed gun store goes out of business, its private records detailing gun transactions become ATF property and are stored at a federal site in West Virginia

The ATF disclosed to lawmakers that it manages a database of 920,664,765 firearm purchase records, including both digital and hard copy versions of these transactions

While the ATF denies that these records are used to track gun owners, it transfers hard copies of the information into a searchable digital database that it says is used to trace firearms tied to crimes. The ATF reported that 865,787,086 of the records are already in a digital format.


As the ATF stockpiles gun records, the Biden administration is seeking to alter a federal law that allows gun stores to destroy their records after 20 years, preventing the federal government from getting them. The Biden administration wants gun stores to maintain their records in perpetuity, meaning that when a store closes, the ATF receives all of its records.

The ATF maintained in its response to the 2021 investigation that the "sole purpose" of its database and ongoing efforts to digitize out-of-business records "is to trace firearms used in crimes."

More than half-a-million traces were performed in 2021, according to the ATF, and just under half a million in 2020

quote:

The ATF maintained in its response to the 2021 investigation that the "sole purpose" of its database and ongoing efforts to digitize out-of-business records "is to trace firearms used in crimes."

After first making it illegal for you to own a gun for any reason they deem.

Yet another reason to get rid of this treasonous section of the government.

I think that its total BS that they ran 500K traces as part of criminal investigations.

De facto federal gun registration.

Or would i be out of line jumping to that conclusion?

I wonder if auditing an FFL's bound book each year is counted as a trace. My FFL and gunsmith tells me they just want to see guns that get logged in also get logged out as a sale. Is that a trace?

KGB Major : Do you want to see me?

Colonel Ernesto Bella : Yes... yes. Go to the sporting goods store. From the files obtain forms 4473. These will contain descriptions of weapons, and lists of private ownership.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick Lee:
I wonder if auditing an FFL's bound book each year is counted as a trace. My FFL and gunsmith tells me they just want to see guns that get logged in also get logged out as a sale. Is that a trace?

That’s not a trace.
A trace is where a department has a gun in hand and runs a “trace” thru ATF.
ATF sends a call to the known distributor where the gun was wholesaled from.
Wholesaler tells which FFL they sold it to.
ATF calls that FFL.
FFL gets call from ATF and gives him a specific serial number.
FFL looks it up in hi 4473 and gives the info the ATF wants…usually it’s the buyer, address, dob, what other guns were sold on that 4473, and phone number if the FFL has it.

Thats a trace. At the end the ATF will contact the originating department if it will help their case or if the Feds are gonna take over the case.

still a good enough reason to have the organization disbanded, its leadership tossed into GitMo for safekeeping, and ALL of its records and databases destroyed in public view

we have enough government thugs, this would eliminate a large number of surplus fake Americans

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
KGB Major : Do you want to see me?

Colonel Ernesto Bella : Yes... yes. Go to the sporting goods store. From the files obtain forms 4473. These will contain descriptions of weapons, and lists of private ownership.

I was not upset when the FFL I used for about 10 years had 8 feet of water in his shop in 2016.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
De facto federal gun registration.

Or would i be out of line jumping to that conclusion?

You would actually have to GET in line to make that jump.

And this is why we don't do a Bill Of Sale when we do private party face to face firearm sales.

No paper, no 4473, no way to trace it.

I have been telling people this for years.
You should have seen the look on most peoples faces when I told them. They were not very happy.
Most people did not realize that when a Fire arms dealer retires or goes out of business that ATF takes position of all 4473 forms less than 20 years old. Most of the time if the dealer has form's older than 20 years they take them too.

quote:

920,664,765 firearm purchase records

So when they say there are around 300 million (or whatever BS number they use) firearms privately owned in the US it looks like they're off by 600million. 3 per every person in this country.

I am not worried. I trust my government.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
I am not worried. I trust my government.

Where's that pic of those dudes laughing?

quote:

Originally posted by sreding:

quote:

920,664,765 firearm purchase records

So when they say there are around 300 million (or whatever BS number they use) firearms privately owned in the US it looks like they're off by 600million. 3 per every person in this country.

Came to say this.


The previous estimates of 400 million guns were somewhat conservative, others recalculated and stated closer to 600 million. Both numbers were trashtalked by both sides of the issue.

Now we have the ATF with a credible claim of 900 million weapons, and we need to keep that first and foremost in our discussions as it comes up.

The Japanese had a saying that invading America would face a gun behind every blade of grass. The talk about confiscation faces the same issue - Its Not Going To Happen. Shelve it.

The logistics of a turn in with man hours, staffing, storage, and folks just flat out ignoring it like the AWB ban in CA and SAFE Act in NY state are the real issues. We get a lot of rampant speculation over it, do the math. It would require the search of every building used for habitation in America, and by the time they got to your house, why would the find anything?

We had a perp crawl into a home and hide in the attic locally, a team of deputies searched that house extensively for days and the County Commissioners called it off - because the next step was literally demolition. They didn't want to buy it over an "alledged" firearm being tucked into some cavity somewhere.

Seeing your house being knocked down to the foundation, or you watching them bringing in equipment? The Trucker occupation of Ottawa can't get wreckers to haul off the thousands of trucks - all the wrecker operators are calling in with the flu ... what equipment operator would bid that job?

It can only happen as a single location press event. Like some guy having the FBI SERT team arrive with CNN filming it for 6:00.

There were over 150 million homes a few years back and projected 223 million by 2023. Good luck with that. 900 million guns is the reason why things are being done they way they are - covid passports, supply chain disruption, media control. There are more of us armed than them in office and they damn well know it. We're the ones they have to manipulate and divide.

To your point Tirod, and if this a thread drift I will delete my post, "we" the people are way more numerous and powerful than the gov't.

The gov't just does a great job of preventing us from exercising it.

Look at how hard they came down on the Jan 6 protest and how they are smearing the freedom truckers. Trudeau is out there calling them racists and the media just goes with it.

I sincerely think the powers pulling the strings would love to confiscate American's guns; however I also think, to your point, they know that it is something that would unite us and provide a clear venue to constitutionally exercise the power of the American people.

We would not comply.

The real issue is that the ATF isn’t supposed to keep records on firearms ownership of law abiding citizens. Does anyone here think that whatever records that are stored digitally are going to be deleted after any length of time? I do not. Perhaps in the pre-digital age when physical space for hard copies would be the issue along with going through warehouses to locate records, but now? I’m sorry, i just do not trust them to not retain records ad infinitum. As a comparison, 20 years ago I would have never believed the FBI could be weaponized against law abiding citizens. But here we are.

Many blue states already have a searchable data base.

I have seem my MA state record when I bought my last gun in MA.

I watched the FFL log my purchase.