I pawned my 30/30 rifle at the Pawnshop and before I get it back I have to do a background check. I know they check the ncis database. I have a DUI arrest, and a possession of Xanax arrest. Will I be able to get my gun back? What will happen if I fail the test? By the way this was done in Mississippi.
In your case question B and C in the certification section of form 4473 seem to apply. If you are under indictment for or have been convicted of a felony for a crime where the judge could sentance you to prison for more than year, even if you recieved a reduced sentance then you cannot recieve a firearm.
http://www.atf.treas.gov/forms/4473/index.htm
Actually that is apart from the NIC check. You may be delayed on the NIC check but if you are okay you’ll probably get approval in a day or two. As to the 4473 I’d check to see if your arrests apply. DO NOT LIE on the 4473 as that in itself is a crime that can prevent you from ever legally posessing a gun again.
Well hold on a sec. A DUI is usually not a felony. So a conviction there shouldn’t matter. It’s the Xanax arrest I’m concerned about. What happened with it? If you were never convicted, then you’re fine. If the crime was reduced and you were convicted of a misdemeanor, then you’re fine. If you were convicted of a felony, (adjudicated guilty), then you cannot receive the firearm.
We’ll need the following info to accurately answer your question:
Was your DUI a felony?
Were you adjudicated guilty?
Where you adjudicated guilty of your Xanax possession?
If they withheld adjudication as part of some pre-trial intervention crap, you’re fine.
If you haven’t been to court yet for your felony Xanax possession, then you are Under Information or Indictment for a felony. And you can’t recieve the firearm.
If you’re under probation for either offense, it is probably in violation of your probation to possess firearms. However, this is a local issue, and you wouldn’t be breaking a federal law by getting your gun back. Thus, you can receive the rifle on a 4473. Just don’t tell your PO…
This isn’t a big deal. It’s like when your PO says you are not allowed to drink alcohol for the year you’re on probation. Of course you do anyway. But you make sure to stay away from your car when drinking.
Correct. And I was actually going to forego mentioning this, but:
If you were recently arrested for the Xanax possession, and you haven’t been to court for it yet, then you are under information or indictment for a felony.
Your truthful answers on the 4473 will prevent you from receiving your rifle. However, this would not show up on your Call-In. So, if you lied or something, NCIS would still approve the transfer.
Not a good idea, of course.
Yeah, the xanax possession was just a misdeameanor because it was only just 1 or 2 bars so I did not get a felony. The DUI was also a misdeamenor. Those are already taken care of. Actually with the xanax possession the court clerk said she dropped it. I did not have to go to court or anything. I am friend’s with her son. I am not on probation and was not facing a 1 year sentence. So I should be alright correct? Any other advice is greatly appreciated. I will try to answer all questions honestly on the form.
Odd, why would using a gun for a loan collateral require you to re-fill the 4473? It is still yours, title has not p[assed to the pawn shop.
Questions of ownership and title in pawn shops is under state law but the 4473 requirement is part of federal law under the GCA for pawn shop transfers.
You are clear to buy all the guns you want. The only misdemeanors forbidding you from purchasing a firearm are those of the domestic violence variety. So don’t sweat it. You’ll get your rifle back without incident.
Because it’s a little different than collateral. Collateral would be if someone says he’ll give you the gun if he doesn’t pay. Pawning is when he gives you the gun, and then you agree to give it back if he does pay.
Semantics, I’m sure. But the key point is that the Pawn Shop has to take possession of the firearm. Why’s that the key point?
Well Licensed dealers are required to keep a Gun Log. No firearm is allowed to be stored on site without being entered into this log. This was a big pet peeve of my old boss. He discouraged us from bringing in out own guns (unless we were wearing them of course), because we’d leave them in the shop for days. If ATF were to come by for an inspection and find guns laying around that were not logged. Well there would be hell to pay. And fines too.
And once the firearm is “on the books” it has to be transfered on an ATF Form to be taken “off the books”. For a private individual, the form is a 4473. And a Call-In is required.
A gun range I used to work at had a “Consignment Case”. There was a display case in the store where customers could leave their pistol and post a price, and then other customers could buy it. We, in turn, would keep a percentage of the final selling price. Worked well for us, because we didn’t have to invest money in the pistol before selling it.
But here’s the kicker. The gun was staying in our store, so it has to be logged on our books. So if the gun doesn’t sell in like 6 months or something and the guy wants to come take his gun back. He has to fill out a 4473 and get a Call-In. If he has had a felony, then we can’t give him his gun back!! Now he’s screwed.
This is not uncommon. Person-to-Person gun transfers are done all the time. So it’s very easy for a felon to get a pistol.
…Felon can be anything. It’s not necessarily saying the guy is evil. He could have a Worthless Check conviction from 20 years ago or something…
But if he has that conviction, he can’t get his pistol back. His best bet is to leave it with us, or have a friend buy it or something. Though, this opens a can of worms because the friend needs to be buying it for himself. If the friend is buying it for the original owner, with the original owners money, then it’s a staw purchase and illegal. But anyway. . .
Wow, appreciate the quick response guys. Thanks for the help bear_nenno By the way its an old Harrington and Richardson 30/30 with a combo 20-guage shotgun barrel.
I ahve worked in a Sporting Goods/Gun Strore, and I ca assure you that you are incorrect for any time where Title has not passed. We used to get in lots of guns for repairs, modifications or warranty work, and they were “lying around” for sometimes months. Sure, we logged them into a repair book, but we did not require our customers to re-file the 4473, do the waiting period, and what not when we were done fixing their gun. We just handed it to them. (But man, it was a pain if they never came back- you have to file a “Mechanics lien” and stuff…)
True, I don’t know that much about Pawn shops- because using them is rather (IMHO) foolish.
Gunsmithing is totally different. And I am clueless about this title crap you keep mentioning. Does this have something to do with permits in your area or something? Title doesn’t mean dick to the ATF.
When taking in a pistol for repair purposes, it is logged in the gunsmith’s books. Firearms do not need to be transfered for repair purposes, because there is no chance that ownership will change hands. With pawning, ownership is changing hands. Otherwise, you’d be able to just get the thing back without paying any money. It’s yours right? A gunsmith has no interest in the firearm itself. But any gunsmith who keeps a firearm overnight must be a licensed dealer.
I was trying to keep it simple, but since you have a little background I’ll try to get into it more.
Dealers and manufacturers can receive firearms for repair or modification and return the same to it’s owner. ATF does not consider this a change in possession. But the firearm must still be logged in the bound gun log. It’s not just “laying around”. It’s logged.
But since it is logged for repair/modification, it can be returned to its owner. And it’s owner only. A person can’t run an errand and pick up his brother’s gun for him on the way home or something.
A pawn dealer is not receiving a firearm for repair. He is receiving it because he has financial interest in that weapon. It’s now his until the pawnee pays back the money he owes.
With a consignment, although the dealer doesn’t really have a vested interest in the firearm, he is displaying the gun For Sale. On a licensed premises, no person can sell or even discuss the sale of a firearm that is not logged on the books and sold through the dealer.
For instance, say I was working at the gun range and someone came in wanting to sell his pistol. If I wanted to buy it -for myself- I would have to go outside in my car or something to discuss a private sale. It would have to be done somewhere that the general public does not have accesss.
When a pistol is displayed on consignment, there is discussion about it for the purposes of selling and all that. A person can’t just sit in a dealer’s store and try to sell his gun to people. So to transfer that pistol to anyone - even back to it’s owner - it needs a 4473.
This also goes for the owner and employees of the store. They can’t just bring in their personally owned guns and try to sell them at the store via private sale. They have to log them into the books and transfer them according to ATF’s rules. It is for this reason that the ATF does NOT ALLOW privately owned firearms to be just “laying around” a dealer’s premises- especially OVERNIGHT.
That’s why the boss would get pissed.
Right. I know there have been problems with “personally owned guns” (by the owner) vs “guns for sale” “on the premises” before.
“Title” is ownership. As long as you still have the pawn Ticket (and it is within the loan period)- you still have Title- the weapon is still yours. True, the pawnshop has physical possession, but the gun is still yours- it’s just being held by them for collateral. It is NOT his. That’s the whole point. The Pawnshop does not own the gun until the pawn ticket (the loan period0 runs out. Now sure- you could sell your gun to a pawnshop- and then they’d own it.
Like I said, we did “log in” the repair gun into a logbook. But we did not do any Government paperwork to transfer the gun back to the owner- because he was still the owner- even though we had physical possession.
(Hijack, sorry)
At one point in my illustrious (yeah, right) career history, I used to run a pawnshop. While DrDeth is correct in the assertion that the pawnshop does not “own” a gun until it has exceeded the terms of the loan, it is considered to have “legal guardianship” of the firearm in question; hence, should something happen to the firearm before the loan expired, we could be held responsible to whatever happened to it.
Since the firearm, then, was legally within the guardianship (and therefore, possession) of our shop, which was a licensed dealer in firearms, we could not transfer the item back to the original owner without a 4473. It was explained to me at the time that doing so could cause the shop to be liable as an accessory to any crimes committed with the firearm by the original owner if we had not filed the form, since we were releasing the firearm to an individual who may or may not be a felon. I know, its all very confusing and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s what our ATF guys told us.
The truth is that firearms have a certain legal ambiguity when it comes to pawn shops; there were several instances during the time I worked there that I had to refuse to return a firearm to its owner because they failed a background check (only necessary for pistols at the time). My policy at the shop, though, was to then hold that item, frozen at the interest rate of the day it would have been picked up, while the original owner contacted the Bureau of Investigation to see if the denial could be resolved. If it could (and once I had received the call to release the firearm), I would let them pick it up at the same cost as it would have been at the date of the original denial. Though I would have been well within my rights to put the gun out for sale, I felt that was dirty dealing, and wouldn’t take part in that.
Sorry for the hijack.
Poeticyde, Longtime lurker, first time poster
Good first post, thanks. It seems a bit odd to me- but then again just about anything the BATF does is strange. 
put firearm on consignment at local gun store. I went to get it back, friend wants to buy it, but they said someone put down a layaway deposit and that trumps my property rights. That can’t be right is it?
Of course it trumps your property rights. You agreed to sell it. Someone purchased it. Where is the confusion?
By entering into a consignment contract you waived your claim of ownership on the gun. You have no property rights anymore. Otherwise consignment would never work.
If you want to keep something don’t sell it.
How did you expect selling something on consignment to work - that you could change your mind after someone bought it and just take it back from them? If they’re not paying you the full amount until the layaway finishes, it’s probably in the contract that you signed to put the gun on consignment. I don’t see how ‘someone bought it, so now it’s theirs’ would even be surprising.