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Found this post over at Dave Hardy's Of Arms and the Law blog:

Form 4473 under Paperwork Reduction Act review

Here's the Federal Register notice, in pdf.

Basically, under the Paperwork Reduction Act, every agency is required to file, with the Office of Management and Budget, any form it has that requests info from the public, together with its estimate of how many hours are spent filling in the form (for 4473, ATFE estimates 4.3 million hours annually; they estimate 10 million are filled out at 25 minutes each.

Then every so many years it comes up for OMB review, and the public can send comments suggesting how the time burden can be reduced. (One that comes to my mind: how about eliminating the requirement for detailed info, in the vast majority of cases where the buyer is presenting state-issued ID that already has all that recorded?)

My first read through the notice does not reveal to me a way to provide comments on-line, which would seem to be a paperwork burden reduction opportunity itself! You apparently have to mail them in. Appears to be a 60-day period. The notice is dated 28 Apr 08, so it appears it is already one week into the period.

What's the point? Other than doing away with it completely, I can't see where any changes would make any difference.

The main purpose of the 4473 is to provide a means to do forward traces. The secondary purpose is to establish the potential (for someday, when the law might be changed to allow for it) to put all of the info into a database in so doing accomplish defacto registration.

No way will the Feds give either of those abilities up.

The rest is just window dressing. (Like I'm sure a lot of people disqualify themselves by checking the boxes indicating that they were druggies, mental cases, or felons.)

How about being able to use mailing abbreviations? Like TX for Texas, or Rd. fr Road, etc.

barres wrote:How about being able to use mailing abbreviations? Like TX for Texas, or Rd. fr Road, etc.

Or giving more space to write them in.

frankie_the_yankee wrote:What's the point? Other than doing away with it completely, I can't see where any changes would make any difference.

As someone pointed out, the use of abbreviations would be nice. In addition to making the form easier for us to fill out and understand, allowing abbreviations would reduce the number of technical violations that could be found by an inspection of a dealer. The easier it is for dealers to stay in business, and the more of them we keep, the better off we are.

But I think we might be able to get rid of it now. It would take a little work politically, but the form is now obsolete. If the real purpose of the form is to provide information to prove the person is allowed to own a gun, we don't need it. Everyone who buys a gun from a dealer is already proven to be legal, either by showing a CHL or by running them through a NICS check.

As for the trace information (and registration data), we could just use the bound book all dealers are required to keep too.

Failing the removal of the form, we could try for a retention period, say 5 years. After that long, the odds of the form still being accurate in any respect are pretty small. The address will probably be off or the person no longer owns the firearm. This would ease the burden on some dealers also.

But I agree that the only change I see as remotely possible right now would be the use of abbreviations. They will not get rid of the form.

"Go to the sporting goods store and bring me the form 4473..."

Ok, on a serious note... I would love either more space to write in or to be able to abbreviate.

srothstein wrote: As someone pointed out, the use of abbreviations would be nice. In addition to making the form easier for us to fill out and understand, allowing abbreviations would reduce the number of technical violations that could be found by an inspection of a dealer. The easier it is for dealers to stay in business, and the more of them we keep, the better off we are.

I have no proof of this, but I think the real reason why they are so fussy with abbreviations is related to their someday dream of scanning all the 4473's into a registration database. As it is, the software has to recognize handwriting. But it would take a major reprogramming effort to give it the ability to equate "Y" with "YES" or "TX with "Texas". To say nothing with handling incorrect abbreviations like "TENN" for Tennesee for instance.

srothstein wrote: But I think we might be able to get rid of it now. It would take a little work politically, but the form is now obsolete.

Not as a means to registration.

The quote from the movie "Red Dawn" is right on.

The form asks for City, state, zip

A lot of folks miss the COUNTY.

Which isn't really needed if you want to find the guy that bought the gun.

tomneal wrote:The form asks for City, state, zip
A lot of folks miss the COUNTY.

The most recent iteration of the 4473 now has a separate box for the county.