If you buy a new gun from a dealer the same thing is just a three, maybe four hop BATFE trace.... (Manuf > disti > FFL > you) so not sure what the difference is here. This "problem" you speak of also exists in any free state, unless you buy a gun used without passing papers, or you buy/inherit a gun that is so old that it's effectively off the books. Virtually every new gun made since 1968, has some records retained on it somewhere by the feds. I'm not justifying the MA system, just saying that you're overstating the "problem" by quite a bit. I don't like having my guns registered in any kind of a database, either... but it is what it is..... The CHSB system data quality is also very poor. (If you pay the $20 and request the printout of the guns you supposedly own, if you've been a gun owner for a long time you will laugh at the level of inaccuracy of the report. I've seen cases where guns that were recently bought from dealers didn't even show up in the report, probably because the dealer spelled your name wrong, or typoed your LTC number wrong, etc. (Although MIRCS tends to reduce this problem somewhat, it still exists with the paper forms).