fa-10 question

[johnN]

what does the chsb look at when a fa-10 is sent in.

the reson i ask is, a friend's father gave me an old shotgun he has had for 15 or 20 years. he used this in the midwest before he moved to mass but never got a mass lic and never cared too. just want to avoid legal trouble for both of us. thanks. john.

 

[GLOCK.Perfection]

what does the chsb look at when a fa-10 is sent in.

the reson i ask is, a friend's father gave me an old shotgun he has had for 15 or 20 years. he used this in the midwest before he moved to mass but never got a mass lic and never cared too. just want to avoid legal trouble for both of us. thanks. john.

they scan it, and forget it

 

[vellnueve]

If you want to avoid legal trouble, take the shotgun to an FFL and have them do the transfer to you.

 

[jdubois]

If you filled it out as a 'registration' rather than a 'personal transfer' without filling in the seller information, nobody would look twice at it. However, that is fraudulent, and not only generally illegal but turning in fraudulent MA government forms is specifically illegal. The only way to do it legally is to do what vellnueve said.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

What shotgun? Jack.

 

[vellnueve]

 

[richc]

they scan it, and forget it

I'm curious, when you say "they scan it"... are they scanning as an image, or do they convert to text for searching or linking to old and new owners in a database?

If they are simply storing images it means they have no real idea of who owns what when purchases are done FTF.

Anyone know the answer to this question?

Thanks,

Rich

 

[GLOCK.Perfection]

I'm curious, when you say "they scan it"... are they scanning as an image, or do they convert to text for searching or linking to old and new owners in a database?

If they are simply storing images it means they have no real idea of who owns what when purchases are done FTF.

Anyone know the answer to this question?

Thanks,

Rich

good question. I doubt most people's chicken scratch could even be converted to text though

 

[drgrant]

I'm curious, when you say "they scan it"... are they scanning as an image, or do they convert to text for searching or linking to old and new owners in a database?

The crap gets scanned off the FA-10 form and gets put in a database. The form is probably set up for their scanner/software to use OCR to dump this info into the database.

This data can probably be queried by the software in some way or another, (eg, like a serial number search, or a search for all records by LTC #, or Name... ) but in many cases it's going to be incomplete or inaccurate, because there are many transfers which take place (or have taken place) legally outside the context of the system. For example, if I sell a gun to an MA FFL, and it sits in his inventory for a year, a cursory check of the CHSB data will still "say" that I was the "current" owner, or at least the last owner they knew about.

IIRC CHSB has a means of sending a report to an MA LTC holder if you pay a fee and send in a notarized form, they will send out a printout of everything with your name attached to it. If you've been a gun owner for a long time, expect to have a good laugh when you get this printout- it'll probably be missing things as well as showing stuff that you don't even own anymore.

I can only imagine how many records don't come up just because of bad penmanship on the old forms alone. I'm sure typos get sucked into the system as well, and probably remain uncorrected unless the person running the scanner gets feedback about obvious typos.

-Mike

 

[jdubois]

I'm curious, when you say "they scan it"... are they scanning as an image, or do they convert to text for searching or linking to old and new owners in a database?

If you look at the instructions they have a specific way they want you to write your characters, and include such directives as "Do not use any loops or swirls in your letters or numbers." So they clearly do OCR conversion on it.

 

[bostonasphalt2]

If you look at the instructions they have a specific way they want you to write your characters, and include such directives as "Do not use any loops or swirls in your letters or numbers." So they clearly do OCR conversion on it.

and my first FA-10 was complete chicken scratch, with letters out of the box, etc. I filled it out HORRIBLY and neither I nor the seller was contacted that it was no good.

 

[vellnueve]

If it can't be read by the machine, I think they hand-input the information.

 

[jdubois]

and my first FA-10 was complete chicken scratch, with letters out of the box, etc. I filled it out HORRIBLY and neither I nor the seller was contacted that it was no good.

Yeah, I've always ignored their "no swirls" etc. and just write as I usually do.

 

[bostonasphalt2]

If it can't be read by the machine, I think they hand-input the information.

wby a person with supposedly infallible reading and typing skills, right? RIGHT???

 

[jdubois]

wby a person with supposedly infallible reading and typing skills, right? RIGHT???

Whoops, you just failed the interview for that job

 

[vellnueve]

Yep

 

[bostonasphalt2]

Whoops, you just failed the interview for that job

good catch, and no, I passed.

Instead of a Glock 19, you "accidentally" own a select fire pistol! oops, sorry! But I work for government, I am never wrong!