ATF 3310.4 - Backdoor registration?

[Eurodriver]

How long does the BATFE maintain these? What kinds of things do they look for?

I’m not out buying multiple Jennings or Hi Points but I have bought 3-5 Glocks at a time on multiple occasions from the same dealer.

Some I kept, some I sold. No one has ever contacted me about this.

Just curious.

[Firefly]

The dealer keeps for 5 years, ATF keeps forever, state agency keeps for however long they deem fit (usually not forever but a while).

Typically more stringently momitored in places with State Anti-Trafficking Laws or Illegal Alien Problems or places that got Bloomberged because they ended up in NY or some such.

If you get pinged with it too many times you will attract some attention.

What they look for is trafficking or frequent resales.

In your case, I wouldn’t worry about it. If they ask just say you wanted it until you didn’t and threw money into stuff you didn’t want and wanted something else you did.

As long as you aren’t making a living selling your stash (i.e. not taxable income, not primary income) and you aren’t like selling to people you know are ineligible you will be fine.

If something gets a trace hit you may get contacted if it was a recent enough transaction.
If multiple hits then definitely a face to face.

That’s just a generality. You’re fine.
Just remember you only got two hands :p

[26 Inf]

Okay, Euro, you sent me down the Rabbit Hole.

1) Is the ATF 3310.4 an attempt at backdoor registration? IMHO, no. it is not. I base this on the fact that the CLEO's are required to certify they have destroyed their copy of the form UNLESS the person was prohibited, in which case they would have been required to notify ATF. The FFL's original 3310.4 goes to the National Tracing Center. Some of the NTC's efforts may be seen by some as an attempt to build a national firearms registration database, but from what I know, that is not very likely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Tracing_Center

2) How can I refuse to play? Exercise patience and pick up your pistols once every seven or eight business days. I say seven or eight just to be safe. I know PITA, but it keeps you safe from the scrutiny of a 3310.4.

Further info:

This form documents certain sales or other dispositions of handguns for law enforcement purposes. The information is used to determine if the buyer (transferee) is involved in a unlawful activity.

ATF Form 3310.4 must be completed in triplicate (3 copies). The original is sent to ATF’s National Tracing Center by FAX at 1–877–283–0288, by email at MultipleHandgunSalesForms@atf.gov, or by mail to:

U.S. Department of Justice
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
National Tracing Center
P.O. Box 0279
Kearneysville, WV 25430–0279

A copy is to be sent to the designated State police or the local law enforcement agency in the jurisdiction where the sale took place. The remaining copy is to be attached to the corresponding ATF Form 4473 and retained in the licensee’s records for a period of not less than 5 years.


Here are the instructions as to time periods:

1. Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) must use this form to report all transactions in which an unlicensed person acquired any combination of two or more pistols or revolvers totaling two or more at one time or during five consecutive business days. This form is not required when the pistols or revolvers are returned to the same person from whom they are received.

2. If this transaction is an additional firearm(s) to a multiple sale(s) previously submitted, check "Yes" and enter the date of the previous Multiple Sale form. (For example a multiple sale for purchases made on a Monday and Friday must be submitted by the close of business Friday. If an additional purchase is made within the five days from the Friday purchase, this purchase is part of the previous multiple sale and must be reported as part of that multiple sale under 2c).

Here is an ATF explanation in response to a FAQ:

The disposition of two or more pistols or revolvers to any nonlicensee during a period of 5 consecutive business days must be reported on ATF Form 3310.4, Report of Multiple Sale or Other Disposition of Pistols and Revolvers, not later than the close of the business day on the day of disposition of the second pistol or revolver.......

.....Example: A licensee conducts business only on Saturdays and Sundays, days on which State offices are not open. The licensee sells a pistol to an unlicensed person on a Saturday. If that same unlicensed person acquires another handgun the next day (Sunday), the following Saturday or Sunday, or the Saturday after that, the reporting requirement would be triggered, the subsequent acquisition of a pistol or revolver would have to be reported on a Form 3310.4 by the close of the day upon which the second or subsequent pistol or revolver was sold.


Best Business Practices for the Timely Submission of Multiple Handgun Sales Reports

Prepared by Wally Nelson, Consultant to the National Shooting Sports Foundation

Background:

Federally licensed firearms retailers are required to file ATF Form 3310.4, Report of Multiple Sale or Other Disposition of Pistols and Revolvers, to report the transfer of two or more handguns to the same person at one time or within five consecutive business days. The business days in this case are the days the retailer’s premises are open. By law, the handgun reports are due to be submitted to both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) for the location where the sale requiring the report occurred; e.g. the CLEO where the FFL’s regular premises are or the CLEO of a gun show location. The report is due on the day that the sale requiring the report occurred.

Each year ATF reports that the failure to timely and properly file multiple-handgun reports is among one of the most common violations found during inspections of retailers. ATF considers this a serious matter because it can potentially adversely impact public safety by hindering the ability of law enforcement to identify and respond to possible criminal activity.

ATF Industry Operations Investigators (IOSs) will have a listing of all multiple-handgun (and certain rifles as is required of retailers along the Southwest border) reports with them when they conduct compliance inspections.

Given the tight time frame for filing reports and the seriousness ATF places on a violation, a retailer would be well advised to develop strong internal controls to recognize sales necessitating the preparation and submission of a report.

Maintain a Simple Handgun Sale Log Book:

The most important internal control a retailer can have when it comes to ATF records is to have one person (and a backup) responsible for all record keeping, including the preparation and submission of multiple-handgun-sale reports. The experience of NSSF ATF Compliance Consultants has been that if no one person is responsible for keeping records and filing reports, inaccurate records and missed reports are far more likely to occur.

Though a review of the day’s Form 4473s would detect sales of two or more handguns on a single form, such an effort will not detect handgun sales made to the same person days apart and by different sales associates.

To identify these situations, many retailers maintain a handgun sales log book, which lists the last name, first name and date of sale for each handgun. This can be in a three-ring binder, but it could be as simple as a steno note pad. Employees who sell handguns must be trained to record all handgun sales in the log book, including occasions where two handguns are sold in a single sale. Management must check periodically to verify that the log book is being completed.

The record keeper must review the handgun log book every day, as part of the review of Form 4473s. He or she should look for sales to the same person. Any sale recorded within the last five business days that matches the name of a handgun buyer during the current day will necessitate the filing of the multiple-sales report.

The requirement to file a report also occurs when a customer buys two hand guns on one day (which in itself is reported to ATF) and then buys a third handgun within five business days of the first report. A second report is required. The record keeper must always look back five business days to determine whether a report(s) is required.

Submitting and Filing Forms 3310.4:

Multiple Sales Reports may be filed by mail, by fax and, now, by scanning and emailing them to multiplehandgunsalesforms@atf.gov.

We strongly recommend that you prepare them, scan them and attach them to a single email to above ATF address. Forms are often destroyed in the U.S. Mail, and ATF sometimes runs out of fax machine paper on long weekends. When you email it you should use the email tool to request a “delivery receipt,” and if you fax it, you should keep the fax transmission receipt so you can later document that it was sent.

Attach a copy of the report and receipt to the pertinent Form 4473 for filing. Do not maintain them in a separate file.

Here are the instructions to the Chief Law Enforcement Officer. This seems to be an attempt by ATF to ensure that the CLEO is NOT doing back dooor registrations:

Instructions to CLEOs receiving Copy 2 of this form: 18 U.S.C. 923(g)(3)(B) provides in part that you certify in writing every six months that no disclosures have
been made and that the multiple sales forms on non-prohibited persons have been destroyed by the CLEO as required by law.

The following statement can be used for this purpose:

"I hereby certify on behalf of (your specific agency name) that for the period of six months (give specific dates) there have been no disclosures of
Multiple Sales Forms contrary to the provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, and that all forms and any record of the contents thereof have been
destroyed as provided by that law."

This statement is to be dated and on your agency letterhead, signed by the proper official and forwarded by the CLEO to: U.S.
Department of Justice, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, National Tracing Center, 244 Needy Road, Martinsburg, WV 25405

[RHINOWSO]

Well if you ever are contacted, they'll have a printed list of everything you have ever bought through an FFL. And NFA items as well.

Not sure how they make it, but they have it or can get it in the course of an investigation.

If a gun you legally sell pops in a crime, you may get an ATF visit to ask you about it. And they'll have this list too.

[maximus83]

Not sure how they make it, but they have it or can get it in the course of an investigation.


Suspect they get it from the states. My state now has--not even really 'back door', but I'd say ACTUAL--gun registration, at least for certain weapons such as semiauto pistols. For these, now the state requires local LE agency to do that background check and pass the result back to the selling FFL. The state is keeping a record of those purchases and that is registration, no other way to describe it. The point being, if some states have 'gun registration' in any way shape or form, it seems almost certain to me that ATF can access that one way or another. They don't really need Fed gun registration, if they can just turn around and grab it from the states.

[Leonidas24]

Well if you ever are contacted, they'll have a printed list of everything you have ever bought through an FFL. And NFA items as well.

Not sure how they make it, but they have it or can get it in the course of an investigation.

If a gun you legally sell pops in a crime, you may get an ATF visit to ask you about it. And they'll have this list too.

In the course of working for 5 years at an FFL, and managing that same FFL for 2 years I've never heard of this. Every time I received a trace request it was for a specific firearm with a specific serial number and sold to us through a specific distributor. National Trace Center provides make, model, serial number, and the distributor they tracked it through to us (RSR, Lipseys, Accusport, etc.) I in turn would search the A&D book to find when and who we sold that gun to, then go digging through 3-4 filing cabinets to find the 4473 that goes with that sale. Pages 1-3 would then be faxed to the NTC, and that was it. Never in 5 years did the ATF request a complete list of firearms that any one particular customer had purchased through us save for once. A woman had slipped through the cracks with her NICS checks and received delays without a resolution and purchased an AR lower and a Kel-tec PF9 within the course of 30 days. We released each of those after the required waiting period on a delay without resolution. About 45 days later NICS calls back with a deny on one, we ask about the other, and in turn we are told it is denied as well. Customer's info is forwarded to NICS, who in turn forwarded it to whoever handled it from there. Customer was charged and convicted for unrelated crimes.

[RHINOWSO]

In the course of working for 5 years at an FFL, and managing that same FFL for 2 years I've never heard of this.
All I can say is in my single data point, they had a comprehensive sheet of purchases while investigating a recovered firearm.

[MountainRaven]

All I can say is in my single data point, they had a comprehensive sheet of purchases while investigating a recovered firearm.

Where was this single data point geographically?

[RHINOWSO]

Sorry, it occurred in Virginia. VA does run it's own 4473 type form as part of the background check, so maybe it came from the state, but it was ATF agents who had the information.

[DaBigBR]

FFL (07/02) here.

ATF gets multiple sale forms but they receive nothing on individual transfers. No 4473s, no bound books, nothing, unless they're asking for it or doing an audit. NICS checks do not provide any info about what is being bought.

Could be in the case that RHINOWSO is talking about that they contacted the dealer(s) from the multiple sale forms for ALL sales to the concerned party or something like that. Could be that they contacted all or multiple FFLs in an area with that kind of request. Who knows?

Either way, your transfer data is relatively safe.

[noonesshowmonkey]

The firearms sale tracking information in the US system is incredibly distributed, and the 3310.4 represents one of the only forms that could be construed as a "registration" in so far as it aggregates any information whatever. Outside of that one piece of paper, the actual means of tracing a sale--much less multiple sales--is quite tedious, and involves faxed requests revolving around the 4473 which are made to the ATF, then followed through at NTC, then back to the ATF, then to the FFL, then back to the ATF, then back to the requester. And each of these steps requires a 1980s era fax machine and a time consuming / absurd search for actual physical documents in whatever filing cabinet or box. There is a documentary about NTC where workers there describe how the concrete flooring at the facility is buckling under the weight of the stacked up boxes of forms, specifically due to legislation that prevents the digitization of such data into any form of searchable database whatever. The entire process takes weeks.

Individual states may have additional reporting requirements, and those laws could include the filing of paperwork at the state level in parallel with the ATF. Were that the case, an investigator could indeed perform such a lookup with a bit more ease than trying to dig through the endless files at the NTC or by making educated guesses based on other investigative work. While I am not an ATF agent, I have spent many man hours trying to find the owner of various firearms, and this took all the steps mentioned above, and involved several long conversations with a few ATF special agents. I have been in the position of being quite curious what the total number of firearms purchased by an individual--in this case a wanted felon, likely a murderer, and known carjacker/bank robber--in a given state, much less any state in the Union, and was confounded by a process so byzantine and absurd that it boggled the mind.

In the case of an investigation, any one of those forms (3310.4 or 4473) would lead agents/officers back to the FFL from whom the weapon(s) were purchased. From there, if that FFL is your main squeeze, compiling a list of weapons that you've purchased is actually quite easy. This is one of the reasons why peer-to-peer sales are such a sticking point, legislatively. They not only skip the background check process, but they also fail to produce what limited paper trail there is regarding the purchase, transfer, and implied ownership of a firearm.

[maximus83]

Individual states may have additional reporting requirements, and those laws could include the filing of paperwork at the state level in parallel with the ATF. Were that the case, an investigator could indeed perform such a lookup with a bit more ease than trying to dig through the endless files at the NTC

Can't speak to all other states, but this is currently the law in WA state as of July 1st, they are keeping state purchase records in a database of every semiautomatic pistol or rifle (not just AR's--M1 Garands, 10-22's, everything semi). I don't fully understand all the details and ramifications of the law yet, people keep discovering new bad provisions in it. For example, the fact that every year, the state is going to scan that database of purchased semiauto weapons, and see if the registered owners during the last year have shown up in any other databases that would disqualify you from having them per the new law (for example, having been committed to a mental health facility during the past year).

Besides the massive invasion of privacy this entails--and the fact that now apparently, as a gun owner living in WA state you don't truly "own" your semiauto weapons after you buy them but rather you have them as a privilege granted by the state and you have to 'requalify' every year to keep them from being confiscated--the way they are doing this suggests a new reality. They are going to continually data-mine those semiauto purchase records looking for ways to get firearms out of people's hands. Given that process, I can see that WA state would have every incentive to provide access to that data to ATF on request. Given the state's process for firearms registration and annual scrutiny of all semiauto owners, I can't see that they have the least concern for the citizen's privacy or Constitutional protections. So they would have no long-term incentive to shield this data from ATF. The thing I don't know is what process the ATF would have to go through to access the WA gun registration database, or under what circumstances they would do that.

I have to think that gun grabbers in others states will be looking to the new WA law--where the funding to research and draft the law, and pass the ballot measure, was heavily funded by billionaires including Bloomberg--as a good template to follow in other states. Even if they can't pass federal gun registration, I have to think the next best thing in their minds would be state-level registration of semiautos, which federal LE agencies could then access under certain conditions.

ETA: Just for reference, here are the exact sections of the WA law I was referring to:

Record Keeping
https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.41.129
The department of licensing shall keep copies or records of applications for concealed pistol licenses provided for in RCW 9.41.070, copies or records of applications for alien firearm licenses, copies or records of applications to purchase pistols or semiautomatic assault rifles provided for in RCW 9.41.090, and copies or records of pistol or semiautomatic assault rifle transfers provided for in RCW 9.41.110. The copies and records shall not be disclosed except as provided in RCW 42.56.240(4).

Annual background renewal checks
https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9.41.139
Department of licensing—Eligibility to possess firearms.
(1) Within twelve months of July 1, 2019, the department of licensing shall, in conjunction with the Washington state patrol and other state and local law enforcement agencies as necessary, develop a cost-effective and efficient process to:
(a) Verify, on an annual or more frequent basis, that persons who acquired pistols or semiautomatic assault rifles pursuant to this chapter remain eligible to possess a firearm under state and federal law; and
(b) If such persons are determined to be ineligible for any reason, (i) notify and provide the relevant information to the chief of police or the sheriff of the jurisdiction in which the purchaser resides and (ii) take steps to ensure such persons are not illegally in possession of firearms.
(2) The department of licensing, where appropriate, may consult with individuals from the public and private sector or ask the individuals to establish a temporary advisory committee to accomplish the purposes in subsection (1) of this section. Members of such an advisory committee are not entitled to expense reimbursement.


And one more detail, the stuff about record-keeping quoted above, indicates that copies/records 'shall not be disclosed except as provided".....here, subsection (4):

https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=42.56.240
(4) License applications under RCW 9.41.070; copies of license applications or information on the applications may be released to law enforcement or corrections agencies;


Sound like potential release to ATF at the slightest provocation? I'm not a lawyer, but it does to me. There's ambiguity there as to whether it refers to state or federal or both.