I was in my local Mom and Pop gun shop today shootin' the breeze with one of the guys who works there. We were discussing the prices of AR15's. I mentioned I had purchased a quantity of Lowers as an investment. He told me that another customer who had done the same thing was approached at his home by BATF! Supposedly they were investigating if he was illegally building AR15's and selling them to individuals and bypassing the proper "dealer" channels! Does this sound ligit to you guys? Should I be expecting a knock on the door from BATF?  
I don't understand how they even found out he had purchased them. A 4473 stays with the dealer... right? Maybe the dealer was audited and this was discovered??? Any thoughts? Anybody here know the legal ins and outs of this? I always thought that once you owned a firearm for a specific amount of time you could legally sell it. Of course, you run the risk of selling it to someone who uses it to kill someone or something. That's why the only firearms I've sold have gone thru an FFL one way or another.

It hapened to a guy here a while back.

ATF is currently on a roll - lots of 'interviews' as of late.





How many constitute "a quantity" ?

You hail from a southern state.
You guys know you are all selling to the mexican narco terrorists right,,,,,,,,,,,

Is there a "magic" number?

I'm guessin' the dealer they were bought thru must have turned them in fearing competition... Or the potential of them being sold to criminals. How else would BATF know how many someone bought?

I wouldn't worry about anything

Dealers didn't turn in anybody.
If your name keeps cropping up during routine 4473 inspections you make the bafte interesting persons list.

HaHaHa... Yikes!!! That doesn't help!!!

+1, but just in case have yourself a boating accident.

Yep.
I still haven't received a decent answer from anybody in the know on what number exactly of which products purchased will get a person flagged.

in good ol' VA (home of the instant background check) when you fill out your paperwork it's called in to the state police (or completed on line). one of the questions is quantity.

SP: "what is it?"

Dealer: "1 rifle" or in this case xxx receivers (pistol, revolver, rifle or receiver [multiple pistol and revolver sales require even more paperwork])

i'm sure that any irregular quantity will get the flag.

if you buy a lot of guns you can be sure that your local BATFE agents know who you are. if you buy all of your guns from the same place then there is no doubt that they know your name and address and have a picture of you and your dog.

the dealer inspections can take an afternoon or 3+ days. the same name over and over or irregular quantities/patterns will stick out. it's not a big deal, the guys are just doing their job.

if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't need to worry (well sorta, "strange" things happen all the time so........). now, if a bunch of illegals are caught running from your place with a bag full of guns you're up the creek.

This... Last time I checked, there is no report as to the quantity of arms you purchased.



... Half the dealers out there are JBT ATF wanna-be's. They'll turn you any for any perceived violation... Whether it could come back to hurt them or not, whether it is actually a violation or not...



Some are good, but a lot would much rather sell to their LEO buddies than a mere peasant.



 

I used to work at an FFL. We would get an 'audit' from our friendly local agents probably every other month. During these audits they can ask for what ever records they want, and if you want to stay in business you provide them with what they ask for. Normally they do a random check of sale and background-check records along with 'disposition' inquiries for a random selection of firearms. If one individual comes up as buying an 'irregular' quantity of anything (whether 50 recievers or 50 10/22s) you can bet that they will look into it. If anything comes up when they check into your past, you can bet that you can expect a knock at the front door sometime soon for a 'wellfare' check.
Furthermore, as it was explaned to me by one of the agents on one of thier 'visits' since a reciever is now concidered an 'other' firearm technically only licensed manufacturers can build them into 'long-guns' or 'hand-guns' for the purposes of future resale or transfer. If it is for personal use you can go hog-wild, but if you are building ARs from stripped receivers for all your friends and family, since you will be transfering them, you are engaging in manufacture with the intent to sell and you need to be a paying license-holder for that...

-RH

also, the ATF doesn't have any data on who buys how many of what, BUT when they do their 'random' checks and your name pops up 432 times they do now

Well, here in Florida the FDLE (Fl. Dept. of Law Enforcement) only requires the dealer to state: Handgun or Rifle. No quantity is mentioned and no serial numbers are stated. The background check is only to determine if you are allowed to own a firearm... Not how many. Frankly, it's none of FDLE's business how many. That's why I was confused as to how BATF knew... But the statement about how many times your name comes up on 4473's during routine checks makes sense.

BATFE can ONLY audit an FFL ONCE a year unless they have a warrant or it is in conjunction with an ongoing criminal investigation.

PursuitSS

This is an interesting statement because on the 4473 and to FDLE they were called "Rifle" by the FFL I bought them from.

what part of FL

On the new 4473s (since November 2008) there is a check-box for 'Handgun', 'Long-gun', and 'Other'. If you read the instructions on the back of the form a receiver is concidered an 'other' firearm by the ATF. So either you filled out the old form (which the ATF said could be used temporarily until they could provide all dealers with the new form) or your FFL incorrectly marked the purchase as a Long-Gun.

No kidding. Then I'm on a list for sure.

There are some dealers like these guys,  http://championfirearms.com/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,flypage.tpl/product_id,1876/category_id,576/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,67/ , that make you sign an acknowledgement that you know it is illegal to use the stripped lower that you buy from them as anything but a "spare part".

Huh?

All of our names are on a 4473 list...........

Just to throw more fuel on the fire...

Remember the 4473 is called into the FBI...

But the ATF is the agency that audits and regulates sales...

The ATF doesn't recieve any of the info on the 4473 until they come and audit the form, at which time they can take down all the info they want to include number and type of firearms transfered, which the FBI is not privy to.

Que tin-foil crowd...

Some FFL's have reported that during compliance inspections, the ATF will photocopy every 4473 and take the copies with them.  We haven't seen that, though we have had multiple inspections occur within a few months time.

Central Fl.

The ATF can and does do whatever the hell they want to.
The policy you're referring to only means that they need probable cause to force more frequent inspections. If the FFL is a willing participant, they can audit every week.
Most FFL's are not going to push the issue for fear of losing their license.

The ATF unfortunately isn't bound by anything including the constitution.

The ATF, like any other govt bureau, is filled with political appointments. However, the ATF is basically run by the whitehouse.
For everybody that sees the BS going on in the current admin., accept that the silver lining is that Pelosi and Obama have bigger fish to fry than another ban right now. They sure will make it as miserable as they can via the ATF though.

If they show up. Tell them to fuck off and slam the door in their face.

Major points if you post pics.

I'm in SE Texas ( the center of the gravity of Project Gunner- see atf.gov) and had a check last week.
ATFE has sent 100 extra agents into mainly Texas (with a focus on the Houston area)  to search out FFL's who may have guns going into Mexico.

The Industry Investigator who contacted me was in from another state temporarily.  In going through by bound books, He keyed in on one guy ( my cousin !!!!!  ) who had bought 3 SIG's and 3 AR lowers in a 18 month period.  He asked if I knew him. Si, Senor! He's my Godson !!

The agents are trying to ID buyers who buy quantities of the same gun that are favored by the narco-nerds.
For a more complete list of narco desired guns   , see the atf site's gunrunner project article.

They may or may not check someone out after a check. More likely, they will log your name and if one of your purchases turns up in Mexico, you may get a visit from a truckload of ATF's with a warrant. If they are in your gunsafe however, nothing to worry about.
Hypothetically, if I sold 50 semi-AK's to a Mexican surnamed buyer in Houston, he would be getting serious attention.
But we wouldn't want to do any ethnic profiling in the Age of Obama, would we ?

Also, they are always on the lookout for folks assembling AR's from receivers for sale off the books  because those builds are not paying the excise tax on those finished firearms.

One other note, the feds told me this was a politically motivated project (obviously) and they have found that most of Mexico's serious narco weaponry is coming in from the Pacific coast from Russia,China, Peru, Venezuela,Cuba and  suprisingly Greece.   They supply real AK's , tons of ammo, and then the good stuff, concussion grenades, RPG's , mortar rounds,etc.

Ditto I have heard of that numberous times.  No tinfoil here.

Oh say it aint so.  ATF agents on a politically motivated boondogle chasing around innocent people and a few low level dealers.  Just wonderfull.  Your tax dollars at work

Usually..................... There is something else going on in cases like this. The BATFE around here does not just knock on doors to check on your AR-15s. lol........ You need to be building them with a "fun switch" or something and selling them online my the metric ton to catch their wrath... at least out here... They are too busy checking on drug/gun cases to mess with or even care about much else. I know of a Pawn Shop that had a lady trade in a shotgun with a 16 inch barrel. The owner called ATF roughly 3 years ago, and several times since....... Still they have not picked up the gun or even come by for her info.

Edit to add- I have had 1 audit........ Last week. It took a agent from Ft. Worth about 3 minutes. He held my book, drank a Mt. Dew and asked if I have many hispanic customers....... I said nope. He said thanks, see ya in 10 years or so laughing and left. I could have kissed the dude I was so happy.

I'm not sure of the lowers you purchased were complete or not, when you buy any more than one firearm there is a second multiple gun form that is sent into the BATFE.
I bought a G20 and G22  to do a side by side comparison a few years back and IIRC there was a second form.

Guys, this is not a "policy". This is written in the law and regulations. ATF does not have the legal authority to conduct a compliance inspection more than once per year. If you are letting ATF in more than that, you are creating your own headaches, not ATF. If ATF inspects you in June, and then come back in July or August for another firearms inspection, you can politely tell them that they are only allowed to inspect once per year, and to have their Area Supervisor contact you if they have a problem. An FFL can lose his license by refusing ATF entrance to conduct an inspection, but they can refuse if ATF wants to inspect more than once per year.

Why do white people from the south sell guns to criminals in Mexico and come to NY and sell them to street hoods? That is what I want to know.