New ATF guidance on recordkeeping for sales by FFLs

[DispositionMatrix]

FFL-to-unlicensed in-staters:
https://www.atf.gov/file/148156/download

Purpose: This Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) procedure gives
guidance to licensed importers, manufacturers, and dealers (licensees) on how to complete the
Firearms Transaction Record, ATF Form 4473 (Form 4473), as revised effective May, 2020, and
record the sale of a firearm, when selling to an unlicensed person who:
a) Has a valid alternate permit or otherwise is exempt from National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) requirements;
b) Resides in the same State as the licensee; and
c) Does not appear in person at the licensee's business premises.
Background: Title 18, United States Code (U.S.C.), section 922(c)(1), states that, in any case not
otherwise prohibited by 18 U.S.C. chapter 44, a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or
licensed dealer may sell a firearm to a person who does not appear in person at the licensee's
business premises (other than another licensed importer, manufacturer, or dealer) only if the
transferee submits to the transferor a sworn statement in the following form:

Private sales:
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regul...eping-and-background-check-procedure/download

Purpose: The purpose of this Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
(ATF) procedure is to set forth the recordkeeping and National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) procedures for Federal firearms licensees (FFLs) who
facilitate the transfer of firearms between private unlicensed individuals. This procedure
does not apply to pawn transactions, consignment sales, or repairs.
Background: Title 18, United States Code (U.S.C.), section 922(t)(1)(A) requires FFLs
to contact NICS before completion of the transfer of a firearm to an unlicensed person.
Title 27, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), sections 478.102, 478.122, 478.123,
478.124, and 478.125, set forth the recordkeeping and background check requirements
for FFLs conducting firearms transactions. For an FFL to transfer a firearm in
compliance with the recordkeeping and background check regulations, the FFL must take
the firearm into inventory and record it as an acquisition in the FFL’s acquisition and
disposition (A&D) record.
- 2 -
Unlicensed persons do not have the ability to use NICS to conduct a background check
on a prospective transferee/buyer and, consequently, have no comprehensive way to
confirm whether the transferee/buyer is prohibited from receiving or possessing a
firearm. In addition, several states have laws that prohibit the transfer of firearms
between private individuals unless a NICS check is conducted on the transferee/buyer.

 

[grey]

Does that read "universal background checks"?

 

[atmay]

Does that read "universal background checks"?

No. Literally just policy on what’s required of the FFL when they do transfers between individuals.

 

[CrackPot]

The first document is for NICS exempt transactions. These are holders of FL resident carry license or TX resident carry license or similar that meet the Brady requirements.

Permanent Brady Permit Chart | Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Prepared by: ATF Office of Enforcement Programs and Services Last updated: August 10, 2023 Note: Notwithstanding the dates set forth below, permits qualify as alternatives to the background check requirements of the Brady law for no more than 5 years from the date of issuance. The permit must be...

www.atf.gov

MA is SO close to meeting this. If you have one of the permits listed, 4473 but no NICS check and the document you linked describes what the FFL must do.

The second document is to facilitate personal transfers which can be simplified to "log in from first person just like normal" and "do background check on second person just like normal" Really nothing here.


Both were re-issued because of the update to the 4473 that occured recently. They had to change all these documents that reference it because they moved all the content around on the damn form. The new 4473 has Section A as the guns being purchased and is on the front page as opposed to the top of page 3 on the old form. Then the buyer fills out crap (including the option for non-binary sex) on the rest of page 1 and part of page 2. Lots of other small annoying changes.

The really cool thing with the new 4473 is you have guns purchased and the name of the buyer all on the same page so you only have to copy/scan one page to create a national registry.

Nothing new or interesting in either document. The first one does not apply to any state closer than Ohio. The second is boring. Both are just updates.

 

[DarthRevan]

The really cool thing with the new 4473 is you have guns purchased and the name of the buyer all on the same page so you only have to copy/scan one page to create a national registry.

And this is what pisses me off the most about the new form.
Pointed out to me months ago by my FFL prior to use.

 

[CrackPot]

And this is what pisses me off the most about the new form.
Pointed out to me months ago by my FFL prior to use.

This is the real news with the new form

 

[drgrant]

When are the new forms mandated cut off date? I haven't seen them yet.

 

[MikeRizz]

As of November 1 only the new form can be used.

 

[rali]

And this is what pisses me off the most about the new form.
Pointed out to me months ago by my FFL prior to use.

So, using my snapscan at home going from 3 pages to 1 saves about 32 seconds on creating an ocr’ed pdf of of a 4473.

Using an “industrial” scanner the time saved would probably be on the order of single seconds.

This change probably isn’t about a national registry.

(NOT claiming there’s no desire for such, just that this isn’t a sign of that apocalypse)

 

[drgrant]

So, using my snapscan at home going from 3 pages to 1 saves about 32 seconds on creating an ocr’ed pdf of of a 4473.

Using an “industrial” scanner the time saved would probably be on the order of single seconds.

This change probably isn’t about a national registry.

(NOT claiming there’s no desire for such, just that this isn’t a sign of that apocalypse)

Lol, do you know how the forms are assembled? I don't care how fast your scanner is having all the pertinent shit on the front page drastically uncomplicates scanning. It also reduces the amount of storage space it takes because they only need one page.

 

[rali]

Lol, do you know how the forms are assembled? I don't care how fast your scanner is having all the pertinent shit on the front page drastically uncomplicates scanning. It also reduces the amount of storage space it takes because they only need one page.

i don’t think it makes a difference.I don’t deal with scanning at $JOB but I know some of the guys who do. Their scanners are custom built for about 3/4 of a million bucks a pop and scan insane amounts of paper an hour. Other friends work in litigation support and do the same.

one page, ten pages, a hundred pages. *slurp* scanned, ocr’ed, loaded into an elastic search database and archived with not so much as a small burp.

And ocr’ed pdf is about a third the size of tiff embedded pdf. And that’s only megs. Storage is cheap, even at scale.

NRA says we bought 13.9 million firearms in 2019. ASSuME’ing 5 mb per 4473 we are looking at 70 tb of data. Let’s be conservative and triple that, so 210 tb. on AWS s3, that works out to $4500/month.

Im confident that the ATF budget can handle that. (ElasticSearchaaS pricing, maybe not, but there are plenty of NoSQL options they can build out).

 

[DarthRevan]

An FFL told me that the ATF is only allowed to scan the front page, which on the old form wasn’t on the same page as the buyers purchase. They had to go to the FFLs to find out what people had left the store with. Now with everything on one page, it’s more data collected and while maybe not a legal registration, it’s sure as f*** a centralization of data that, if “misused”, makes is easier to create a registry.