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An interesting question
"Do the Seattle Police Keep An Illegal Instant Firearms Database?"
FOPA provides:
"No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established. "
That relates to rules or regulations. Whether the information could be disclosed to a State without such a rule would, I'd imagine, be a matter under the Privacy Act.
Comments
At the state level, Washington does keep a list of who buys handguns from an FFL. It's a separate form that's filled out along with the federal form.
As far as I know, it only applies to FFL sales and not any subsequent private party sale.
As such, if you bought a handgun at a the local gun store and then sold it privately, your name would still be attached to the gun as far as the state is concerned.
I believe there are some cities in WA other than Seattle that also keep their own sales records of FFL transactions.
Posted by: Tom in Seattle at November 19, 2012 11:28 AM
Massachusetts maintains their own system that requires registration of all transfers, both from dealers and private parties. Since nobody with any knowledge of firearms (or evidently of record systems in general) every has the slightest input into the drafting of these laws, every gun you've ever purchased shows on your record for ever, as the do on the record of everyone who'd ever purchased them.
Posted by: Ken M at November 19, 2012 03:17 PM
So does MI.
Posted by: ParatrooperJJ at November 20, 2012 08:24 AM
Tom in Seattle, so "As such, if you bought a handgun at a the local gun store and then sold it privately, your name would still be attached to the gun as far as the state is concerned."
leaves a big risk of Belgian Corporal should the worm turn sufficiently.
Posted by: Windy Wilson at November 20, 2012 06:28 PM