Who Is My Gun Registered To

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The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 mandated that all firearms accept a serial number and that everyone who buys a gun fill out federal Course 4473. The form records the name, address, driver's license information and background cheque information of the buyer equally 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 business, then surrender them to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). If yous are a constabulary officeholder, you can trace a gun by accessing an ATF information organisation called "eTrace."

Recover a gun you desire to trace. Write down the serial number on the gun if it is available. If you lot are trying to trace a gun without a serial number, submit the weapon to the ATF where diverse 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 Serial Numbers on Guns

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

Impress out the ATF trace response. The i-page trace response will include the manufacturer, wholesale gun dealer and retail gun dealer who sold the weapon. The trace response will also listing previous trace requests for the aforementioned weapon.

Become to the retail gun dealer who sold the firearm to a customer. Examine the Grade 4473 for that weapon. Make up one's mind the showtime retail client for that weapon.

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

Warnings

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

Some firearms manufactured earlier 1968 or outside of the United States are not marked with serial numbers.

Tips

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