There’ve been so many threads on the subject that I thought it would be easier to just pose the question again: I think I recall someone saying that there are states that do not require that guns be registered. Does that mean that when you go into a gun store to purchase a gun, they don’t record the serial number or attach that purchase to you? If not, what’s the deal?
Thank you.
Forgot to add, what states are not required to register guns?
No, they must all, as a minimum, record the fact of the sale, the serial number and the buyer’s name and address on the form 4473. Whether this amounts to ‘registration’ depends, somewhat, on your viewpoint.
Either it is a registration, or it isn’t. What exactly are you saying, Mk Vll?
Not all guns have serial numbers. I point to the example of my $60 Mossberg 500. Perfectly good shotgun. No registration, license, serial number, record of existence, or other information on file with the state anywhere.
On the other hand, it wasn’t bought in a store in the last 50 years, eithe.
Certain types of guns don’t need to be registered. When I bought my civil war musket for example I walked in, paid for it, and walked out. Nobody even recorded the serial number off it it. Then again, I don’t think they expect too many people are going to do a drive by shooting with a gun that is 5 feet long and weighs 10 lbs.
Some states require you to purchase a license for certain types of guns. What licenses you have to buy and which guns they apply to vary from state to state. The wikipedia article on gun laws has a decent summary that breaks it down by state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)
Is it safe to assume that all guns manufactured since 1950 need to be registered?
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA) required serial numbers on all firearms manufactured or sold in the US. I’ll point out that a black powder arm that doesn’t use “fixed ammunition” is not considered a firearm under federal law.
So, many guns made before the GCA had no serial numbers. The ones made by major manufacturers did, but a lot of guns did not.
The dealers completion of a 4473 does not constitute registration because it’s a requirement imposed by his FFL. Additionally these paper forms are stored in boxes in the dealer’s back room. To trace a sale someone would have to look through all the forms. In most states, a person to person sale, no FFL involved, doesn’t require any checks or forms, though most smart folks will make up a bill of sale in case it’s needed later.
Some states, Michigan is one, require a “safety inspection” of any handguns. I’ve read recently that they are dropping this requirement in the near future.
So depending on what you mean by “registered” it may or may not be a requirement.
I’d call ‘registration’ a system which required all owners of all guns, however acquired, to inform government-in-the-broadest-sense of what they hold, and who they disposed of them to if they sold them.
Kalhoun, we’d like to be clearer, but the laws differ from place to place, so we can’t. In California, one of the most restrictive states, all gun purchases must go through a dealer and be 4473d. In other states, person to person transactions are totally unrecorded. Then there are the differing laws involving C&R weaponry (Curio and Relic). Most of my rifles fall into this category because they were manufactured more than 50 years ago.
In Massachusetts, if police want to track down the owner of a gun, they can go to a state database that will indicate which FFL sold it, to whom, current address, etc, and be knocking at that person’s door in short order. If that person (still living in MA) no longer owns the gun, he’s in trouble, since if he sold it (even privately), he didn’t fill out the right forms and send them to the state, or if it was stolen, he didn’t report it and fill out a police report. If he had done either of those things, it theoretically would have shown up in the database.
In other states, there is no database the police can go to. They can track it down to the original dealer, who should have paperwork to show who bought it from him, but if that person says “Oh, I sold it 10 years ago. Don’t remember who I sold it to.”, he hasn’t broken any laws and the police can’t do anything to him.
Pretty much the same as here, then.
Thanks. I was talking with my husband this morning and I told him we had discussed the “no registration” thing in a thread or ten, but I couldn’t remember the details. He said that everything has to be registered to a degree, which I see is true for dealer transactions, but you’re saying person-to-person is not required in all states. That includes handguns? Do people actually just buy and sell without recording? What happens if A sells a gun to B and he sells to C and then its stolen and used in a crime? Do they go back to A and charge it to A since he’s the 4473 dude?
No. “All guns must be registered if purchased from a licensed gun dealer” is more like it. I have bought guns from individuals through an ad in the newspaper, with no exchange of anything but cash. It’s perfectly legal here.
ETA: Yes, this applies to handguns too. The fact that you were the original owner of a handgun that was used in a crime is not enough to convict you of a crime.
They go back to Dude A, who says “Nope. Sold it years ago to some guy. Here’s the bill of sale.” That’s the end of the paper trail.
The laws also don’t cover guns that are given as presents, inherited, and stuff like that. If I inherited a pistol that my father purchased over 50 years ago in a state that didn’t require any paperwork, then there is absolutely no way to trace ownership of that gun.
Charge A with a crime? What crime has A committed?
Who knows? If there’s no record of him transferring the gun to someone else, all we know is that he purchased it. I’m just saying that I don’t see how the police could not look at the owner of record if a crime was committed. If there was some kind of flimsy evidence (and there usually is) that could make it look like he not only owned the gun, but was in the area or whatever, why couldn’t the police assume he was involved? A record of transfer would at least prove that he didn’t have possession of the weapon at the time of the crime.
If he has a bill of sale. But you’re saying that often times a gun will change hands with no paper trail, correct?
I’m just saying that I’ve heard of innocent people doing time for less circumstantial evidence.
Not only that, they actually give guns away. :eek:
My great-grandfather bought a Fox-Sterlingworth shotgun in an unknown and almost certainly defunct shop sometime around 1914. It’s sitting in my bedroom upstairs - and the transactions that brought it to my possession weren’t recorded by any government.
Same with a Marlin 30-30 that my dad bought sometime in the mid-1960s and gave to me a decade ago, and a Winchester Model 94 that my father-in-law had owned for an undetermined amount of time and gave to me a few years back.
Then there was that trapdoor Springfield that my dad gave me in trade - but as mentioned above, it is so old it is likely not considered legally a firearm anymore. Besides, nobody really is at risk from something manufactured in 1866.
I mention this to people, and you can see where they stand on the issue - some shrug and accept this as a perfectly natural way to deal with one’s property, and some people’s eyes get wide as saucers, and their arms just begin to flail.