Tracing a gun to its first purchaser is so involved as to not be used without good reason.Mike from Texas wrote:Well I don't pretend to know the process, but meaning that I am the one who purchased the gun. If for some reason she got pulled over or worse yet she actually had to shoot someone and the serial number was "run" would the gun not show up as me as the owner or does no such database exist?
My understanding of the process is this:
Authorities contact the manufacturer to see which distributor bought the gun when new.
Authorities contact the distributor to see which dealer bought the gun.
Authorities must then physically visit the dealer to inspect his records to learn which customer bought the gun originally.
Authorties contact that customer to see if he still owns the gun. If not, he does some explaining to convince the authorities that he got rid of it.
Now from here, all bets are off.
Even if 4473's are completed later on, perhaps when another dealer resells it as used, the distribution chain has been broken.
And since person to person sales are legal without paperwork, in many cases, tracking one is completely impossible.