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csmsss · July 25, 2011, 06:58 PM

Tom, I think the risk might be more profound than you are acknowledging. Yes, if one were manually searching the 4473's of individual mom and pop gun shops, it would be problematic to create a comprehensive registry of guns by owner.

But a list need not be comprehensive to be dangerous. And you can get pretty damn near comprehensive if you just go after the big shops that sell hundreds of firearms a month.

And you don't have to manually record these transactions if you copy the 4473's and pay some contract employees $12/hr to type each one into an Oracle database (in contravention of federal law, but it certainly doesn't appear that BATF is paying much attention to that these days!).

This has all the shape, form and function of a prototype - a pilot program that is being tested for eventual deployment nationwide. No, they can't compile a perfect list with this approach - but they can certainly cast a broad net.

July 25, 2011, 06:58 PM	#734
csmsss Senior Member Join Date: October 24, 2008 Location: Orange, TX Posts: 3,078	Tom, I think the risk might be more profound than you are acknowledging. Yes, if one were manually searching the 4473's of individual mom and pop gun shops, it would be problematic to create a comprehensive registry of guns by owner. But a list need not be comprehensive to be dangerous. And you can get pretty damn near comprehensive if you just go after the big shops that sell hundreds of firearms a month. And you don't have to manually record these transactions if you copy the 4473's and pay some contract employees $12/hr to type each one into an Oracle database (in contravention of federal law, but it certainly doesn't appear that BATF is paying much attention to that these days!). This has all the shape, form and function of a prototype - a pilot program that is being tested for eventual deployment nationwide. No, they can't compile a perfect list with this approach - but they can certainly cast a broad net.