Quote:
How?
If I make an 80% lower engrave a number into it, someone steals it and is later found to possess it, how would police know it was ever mine?
ATF do not take stolen arms reports from non-licensees. A lot of localities don't maintain a registry of stolen firearms.
A manufacturers serial number makes some sense for an item first sold exclusively through federal licensees who are obligated to keep individual transaction records. If the first contact a PD has with your homemade lower is recording its possession by someone held for a crime, they are not aware of any link to you unless there is a way to create that link for the PD first.
|
When a gun gets stolen the first thing police ask for is the serial #. My cousins house was broken into last year and they stole a bunch of his guns. The police recovered 90% of them because he was smart enough to have the serial #'s written down. They recovered one from a gun show, one from a pawn shop, and 3 others when someone tried to use one in a crime. They were all returned in 90 days or less. Out of the 6 guns stolen only one is still missing. So yeah, serial numbers aren't a bad thing. Also comes in handy if you have defect that the manufacturer will cover under warranty (complete guns obviously).