I thought by law they were supposed to be destroying after a certain period of time.
Lots of those destroyed guns filtered back. From armorers, escort police. City boat handlers, go offshore, dump. A snub nose here, shotgun there, parts, you name it, reloaders, ancillary equipment.
Who’s gonna know?
FBI was supposed to purge their records by a time certain, after the background check was completed. FFL dealers were required to keep their 4473 hard copies indefinitely. When they closed their business, they went to ATF. ATF also goes in and scans their records. What could possibly go wrong?