How To Check If A Firearm Is Registered

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The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 mandated that all firearms have a series number and that anybody who buys a gun fill out federal Form 4473. The class records the proper noun, address, driver's license data and groundwork bank check information of the buyer as well as the model and serial number of the gun. Licensed gun dealers are required to keep these forms for as long as they are in concern, then surrender them to the Agency of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). If you are a law officer, you tin can trace a gun past accessing an ATF information system called "eTrace."

Recover a gun y'all want to trace. Write downward the serial number on the gun if it is available. If you are trying to trace a gun without a serial number, submit the weapon to the ATF where various techniques may be used to recover serial numbers that have been mechanically or chemically removed from legally manufactured firearms.

Read More: How to Search for Series Numbers on Guns

Log on to the eTrace website at https://www.atfonline.gov/etrace. Enter the manufacturer, type, caliber, butt length and serial number of the weapon. The ATF answers disquisitional trace requests inside 24 hours.

Print out the ATF trace response. The one-page trace response will include the manufacturer, wholesale gun dealer and retail gun dealer who sold the weapon. The trace response volition also listing previous trace requests for the same weapon.

Become to the retail gun dealer who sold the firearm to a customer. Examine the Form 4473 for that weapon. Determine the starting time retail customer for that weapon.

Interrogate the first retail owner of the weapon. Determine if he sold the weapon and if he required the buyer to complete Course 4473. The last possessor of a firearm to consummate Form 4473 is usually called the "registered owner."

Warnings

Firearms are sometimes sold in casual transactions without the completion of Form 4473.

Some firearms manufactured earlier 1968 or exterior of the United States are non marked with series numbers.

Tips

New York, Maryland, California, New Jersey, and Massachusetts besides go on detailed records, similar to the information recorded on Course 4473, of firearms sold in those states.