The gun you bought legally may be a stolen gun, new law needed to protect gun buyers.

11/30/2006 | Trteamer

[Trteamer]

I am going to be going to the legislature to get a gun law passed an I would like to get you FReepers input and advise. It's not an anti-gun law I want to pass, but one to protect us gun buyers........

[KoRn]

Oh I know. I screw up all the time by not following my own advice lol. I just wanted to give you a heads up because you are communicating with legislative folks.

[perfect stranger]

"Schoolhouse Rock" was a series of educational cartoons on Saturday morning TV when I was young.

Here's a link to the one this poster was talking about.

link

[JLS]

Yeah I had not considered any insurance company.

I would think that a reputable firm would want to make good with you rather than force both of you to give more money to attorneys than this is worth. Have you contacted the firm concerning making good on their sale of defective product to you?

What should happen is for the insurance company that owns the gun, sell it to the store you bought it from and they should make good to you by giving it back to you. [If the gun would show up clean now. They should give you another gun if that gun would not show up clean now.] Of course that is only logical not what will probably happen in the real world.

[William Tell]

spunkets said: "The gun doesn't belong to you. It was stolen. It belongs to the owner and that's who they legal must give it back to, unless it is unclaimed. "

Using the same reasoning, the gun never belonged to the dealer who sold it. That dealer should make good to the purchaser.

[Snoopers-868th]

I got it right off and I am pretty dense. I can't remember where it is from though.

[Clinging Bitterly]

Well if you do want a law it should be a state or local ordinance. Just keep Nancy and Harry out of it.

I don't know about gun dealers specifically, but in these parts most pawn shops are FFL dealers and they have the local police check the temperature of everything they take in that is serialized. Gun shops can do that and probably should.

Caveat emptor, I guess.

[spunkets]

18USC922(j) It shall be unlawful for any person to receive, possess, conceal, store, barter, sell, or dispose of any stolen firearm or stolen ammunition, or pledge or accept as security for a loan any stolen firearm or stolen ammunition, which is moving as, which is a part of, which constitutes, or which has been shipped or transported in, interstate or foreign commerce, either before or after it was stolen, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the firearm or ammunition was stolen.

The clear fed crime the thief is guilty of...

[spunkets]

"That dealer should make good to the purchaser."

Yes, but that's a civil matter, as I pointed out.

[lesser_satan]

CONJUNCTION JUNCTION, WHAT'S MY FUNCTION?

[Trteamer]

Thanks spunkets, you are a wealth of information.

[Clinging Bitterly]

18USC922(j)...The clear fed crime the thief is guilty of...

Call me cynical - but I don't think your common tweaker type thieves or even professional racketeer type gun runners get high priority at ATF. Their bread & butter is checking for abbreviations on 4473s.

[Swordmaker]

Check your pawn brokers statutes in Colorado. It may aready be on the books and Garretson's may not be aware they are covered by it.

In California, pawn shops and gun shops (really all used merchandisers who traffic in serialized merchandise) are required to report their purchase by the store to the police and hold all firearms for 30 days while the police check the status of the firearm.

However, 30 days was not long enough to check all records back before they were computerized... but it did clear the firearm to be legally sold.

[Swordmaker]

Your right, the gun does not belong to me. The original owner has already gotten paid by his insurance company for the gun and has expressed to me that if he gets it back he will give it to me. The whole thing kind of sucks.

Under the law, your gun now belongs to the insurance company... the original owner was compensated for its loss and the legal title passed to the Insurance company. I had some guns stolen about 10 years ago... and one was recovered. The insurance company claimed it from the police and offered to sell it to me for MORE than they paid me on the claim... they said it had appreciated in value in the couple years since it was stolen. I politely asked the insurance company if they had a Federal Firearms License.

[Joe Brower]

[ExSoldier]

Here is the problem with what you propose: Many of the guns stolen each year are not reported to police for a variety of reasons. The database on serial #'s is way incomplete. This then becomes a way for the antis to mandate universal gun registration...which is always a precursor to confiscation. They've got to know where the guns are located so they can go grab them.

Here's a choice of solutions: Either buy the gun from somebody you know personally, or pay to have a used gun #'s "run" or just buy NEW!

Any new law is an invitation for the other side to exploit the situation to our detriment. Just my .02.

[NonValueAdded]

I'd rather see a Web site where you could run a check yourself anonymously, much as you'd run a CarFacts check when buying a used car. Then every buyer has a measure of protection whether from a dealer or private sale.

[looscnnn]

Yeah that's it, stand on the US side of the border just outside the Customs location and go to town on the geese. Then if the agents give you a hard time, show them the border and tell them that they have no business doing DNR work.

[looscnnn]

Canadian bacon I bet.

[kerryusama04]

There has got to be a requirement that gun dealers check the serial numbers of a gun when they take one in on trade. A simple phone call to law enforcement is all it would take so they can run the number in their database.

I don't want any law passed that makes is easier to accept stolen goods. Next time, check the damned serial number on your used gun purchase yourself with the police.

Garretson's sold me a hot gun!

Loosely translated, you bought a hot gun.

[Cold Heat]

What you are asking for will likely interfere with private sales of guns, or anything else, for that matter.

I don't know about you, but I always check with the pertinent authority on major used purchases, like guns, or cars.

The internet has a trace you can run on a car for a small fee, and many or most police departments will do the same on a gun SSN....I bought one about ten years ago and ran the numbers...

All this is currently available, and this time you just did not use it. I would take the matter up with the sporting goods store owner, and BTW, you will not get that shotgun back. It will be returned to the owner, or destroyed.