Quite often. Over half the transactions in the country would be my guess. No bill of sale, no numbers recorded, nothing at all.
Last year, I acquired a gun in the personal effects of my sister, who had died. Later, someone who knew her (who I think is a lying nut) claimed the gun belonged to them and very strongly demanded it back.
I contacted my State BATF and the local police department to see if this person actually did own the gun and found that the guns in my State (Texas) are not “registered” in the sense that you can submit the serial number to find out who owns them. The serial numbers are recorded at sale, but not filed or records kept at any central agency.
I was told that if I wished, I could keep the gun and require the person claiming ownership to provide proof of ownership, such as a receipt of purchase. I did not find any receipts for a gun sale or purchase in my sister’s personal effects. I assume it was hers since I found it under her underwear in her dresser by her bed. She lived alone at the time she died in a house that she owned.
But maybe this person ‘loaned’ it to her. I don’t know.
I was torn- giving the gun to someone who does not have any proof of ownership and I think is a nut (who was by now accusing me of stealing the gun from them and threatening to sue me and otherwise make my life miserable), or keeping it away from the nut and having to deal with them.
So I just recorded the make, model and serial number and delivered the gun to their attorney (Clarification- this person was not now suing me over the gun issue, but has enough ‘issues’ that they ‘have an attorney’, and just I happened to know who it was).
So, as near as I can tell from personal experience, serial numbers are (or may be) recorded in little batches all over the state from private homes to sporting goods stores to individual specialty shops and no central agency records or keeps track of them.
Now I wonder how police or other law enforcement-types track the serial numbers in crime cases. I’d guess they have to either visit a lot of gun shop/dealers or maybe send serial number search requests to lots of places.
This just seems so risky for the original owner. Why would anyone want to bring that kind of (potential) trouble down on themselves?
You can put me in the “flail” column.
Who knows? Personally. I’d at least get a bill of sale. But a lot of people don’t feel that way. I have a .22 rifle that I bought off a young man must have been 30 years ago that has no paper at all. He needed some quick cash, I had the funds, so we came to an agreement. I’ve been plinking with that rifle ever since. I don’t think he was worried I was going to be out robbing banks with his rifle.
In WI there is no paperwork required for a private transaction. I own a non zero amount of firearms and there is no paperwork linking me to any of them.
Probably half my guns have no “paper trail” or one that is so convoluted it’s essentially non existent. I have 4 or 5 firearms with no serial number, a couple of war surplus rifles that have passed through many hands between 1945 and now and the US (or Italian) government is the only owner on record. Gifts from family members, purchases from complete strangers, sales to complete strangers (neither with a bill of sale or anything “some guy, kinda big”).
Those I’ve purchased from an FFL and I still have possession of, only 3 or 4 were bought from a big-box store, the rest are from some guy that keeps a box of forms in the back of his garage.
Except for those, there is nothing resembling registration in Colorado. No one knows (or cares) what I have. And it’s no ones business, especially the government.
I do see your point, but I don’t think the level of risk is anywhere near as high as you do for most weapons and in many locations. Rifles and expensive handguns are used in very few crimes, so those I’d feel completely safe selling without doccumentation. I’m also in VT, and almost everyone already has access to weapons, and there is next to no crime.
I have a POS Jennings .32 auto that I’d like to get rid of, but don’t want to sell. It’s not that it could be traced to me, as there is no paperwork, it’s just that it is good for nothing but crime. It’s not something that would sell for a high enough price that I could be reasonably sure it wasn’t likely to be used in a crime. It’s also inaccurate and prone to jamming, so it’s not even good for plinking. I’ll probably just saw it in half and bury it.
True story here. I swear!
I owned a S&W revolver that I’d bought from a dealer. Two years later I traded up to a different dealer in a different state, before 1968 GCA.
Two years later I received a call from an FBI agent asking if I owned that particular revolver. I said that I had owned that model, but was unsure of the serial number. he assured me that the number he was quoting was the gun I owned. I explained that I had traded it to someone, a dealer, for another gun, and way did he want to know? It was recovered after a bank robbery in Kentucky he says. Now I was more interested in furnishing the information on who I’d sold it to. I was able to search my canceled checks and provide the dealer’s name. He thanked me and hung up.
Glad I was able to point the trail of ownership in the right direction.
The original owner of the aforementioned shotgun has been dead more than twenty years, and he was creeping up on the century mark when he died. He is beyond caring. The other firearms were given to me by their original or near original owners, who presumably trust me enough to do so, as I will when and if I decide to give my children guns some years hence.
As for the original owner of the trapdoor Springfield, that would be the U.S. Army. I have no idea of the chain of custody of that firearm before about 1940, nor do I or any of those people care, in all likelihood. That was another forearm acquired by my great-grandfather, and he’s now safely dead.
I do have some other firearms that I have purchased or have won in raffles - these were processed according to the law and don’t affect this particular discussion.
Bring it to a city gun buyback and get valuable merchandise for this worthless POS. 
To do that I’d have to go to a city, and we don’t have those in VT!
That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Here in Arizona, private party gun sales (person to person) are legal and have no paperwork associated with them (except for sales tax, which nobody ever bothers with). As mentioned above all new gun sales from dealers are required by Federal (not state) law to have the serial number recorded and a background check completed.
If I’d not been able to provide any information at all, other than “I don’t own that anymore”, I don’t see any recourse they’d have. If I’d sold it to a fellow at work, and he’d sold it to someone else they’d be no where. If I’d paid with cash rather than a check I’d not have been able to provide any information.
Wouldn’t that inability to defend yourself open you up to threats and hassles? I’m sure they’d need more than just the gun to throw the book at you, but I would be very concerned if they started throwing out things like “we have a camera record of your car going through a toll booth an hour before the murder” or “witnesses recall a man with a ponytail like yours running from the scene.” When that shit starts, a receipt could be your best friend. There are entirely too many innocent people in jail for circumstantial evidence, and no record of transfer could be the icing on the cake.
In PA, we are not required to “register” our handguns.
They started a campaign about a year ago to encourage people to fill out the non-required paperwork when selling or trading handguns privately, but I doubt anyone really took it seriously. We are not required by law to tell the police if a firearm in our possession has been stolen or transferred ownership.
You need to pass the background check to purchase a gun from a dealer and we have a 48 hour waiting period. I don’t think we have many restrictions on handguns here in PA. You do need a concealed carry permit to carry, but just about anyone can get one*.
*Caveat is Philadelphia County. Apparently it is hard for most Philadelphia residents to get one unless they are some kind of LEO. Technically, PA is a “shall-issue” state where the county has to prove you are incapable of carrying in order to refuse your application, but Philadelphia is trying really hard to make it tough for a resident to get a permit. Philadelphia requires a bunch of extra steps in the process making it a lost cause for many people.
I have several firearms that were purchased over a sheet of notebook paper stating nothing more than “Gun XX-XXX1234 was transferred to Cluricaun on D/M/Y for $$, signed Seller and Cluricaun”
As far as I know (and I know pretty far) these were legal transfers where the sales took place.
Now here in the Peoples Republic of Illinois if I want to buy a new gun, even from a private seller, we have to go through a holder of a FFL to do so, fill out more paperwork than it takes to buy a house, wait a few days, present my FOID card and have a new background check run, and then complete the transaction. My FFL guy is pretty cool and handles all the nonsense for $15 (or a case of beer or dinner, his call), and since he’s a gunsmith he gives the gun a once over before allowing the sale to go through though so I don’t mind the time.
I can understand your curiosity on this particular subject, but spare me your phony concern for the gun owner. Your previous threads have demonstrated pretty clearly that you don’t particularly care what happens to us.
Why don’t you 'fess up and just state right out that all of these untracked guns just scare you to death?
She has stated that before, the civility thus far in this thread is rather amazing imho.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to that Ruger SP101 .357 that was stolen out of my car. I’m not getting it back unless someone tries to sell it or uses it in a crime and is caught.