Number of Americans who Own Guns and the Number of Guns owned by Americans

[Youngblood]

Maybe that 300 million number is legally registered guns. ...

Legally registered? I live in Virginia and not a single one of my many firearms is "legally registered" and, to my knowledge, neither are the firearms of any other Virginian ... and Virginia is not alone, thank goodness, as much as the "Antis" would like it otherwise.

You must be referring to something else.

[USGI]

I live in Virginia and not a single one of my many firearms is "legally registered" and, to my knowledge, neither are the firearms of any other Virginian.

They may actually be if you filled out ATF Form 4473 when you purchased any of them. Just say'in. - Bob

[Aragorn243]

Legally registered? I live in Virginia and not a single one of my many firearms is "legally registered" and, to my knowledge, neither are the firearms of any other Virginian ... and Virginia is not alone, thank goodness, as much as the "Antis" would like it otherwise.

You must be referring to something else.

Yeah, you never know about these things. These forms are supposed to be destroyed after a period of time but many agencies have been found to not be destroying them. It's not a formal registration but it may still be happening without our knowledge. I more or less assume that anything I purchase through an FFL is on record somewhere.

[old tanker]

Congress has prohibited the ATF from keeping a database of guns and who owns them. In practice, things my be a bit ambiguous. The FFL's keep 4473s in their personal files until the ATF come looking for a specific serial number firearm. When that FFL turns in his FFL or goes out of business he has a limited time to turn in all his records to the ATF or face prosecution for failing to do so. An army of GS-3 clerks in Martinsburg is kept busy scanning in these records. Do these scanned documents constitute a database? A succession of ATF director's say not. Common sense and the increasing capability of computers gives lie to that claim.

[rcathey]

I believe it's been decided that non-searchable PDFs are OK to use and do not violate the "no database" law.
If a request comes in or a trace, human beings literally read through the documents one-by-one to find a hit.
Firearms traces are decidedly not like what one would see on TV haha.

[Youngblood]

They may actually be if you filled out ATF Form 4473 when you purchased any of them. Just say'in. - Bob

In which case they would be il-legally registered.

... but, just in case, ... thank goodness that the lion's share of mine I acquired sans 4473.

[painter777]

Picture pulled from this link:
Police guns are turning up in crimes, but ATF can’t talk about it | Reveal

Neil Troppman of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives opens a shipping container filled with documents from out-of-business gun stores. He says that that if law enforcement agencies wanted to find out if any of their former weapons showed up in crimes, he isn’t sure his agency could tell them.

[browningautorifle]

Police guns

Stuff from the seized and turned in gun lock up. Just like anything else, money talks loud...and those guys aren't any better than anyone else. Just that they think they're golden. Some, not all...just a few rotten apples.

[Aragorn243]

The police guns they are talking about are those that are surplused out, not seized guns. Although I expect some departments also sell those. Used to do them at auctions but a lot of people complained. A lot of departments are cutting them up now.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Interesting article on the subject.

ATF eTrace: Backdoor National Firearms Registration Scheme - The Truth About Guns