U.S. based gun registries

February 25, 2018 11:04 PM

I've read that the 1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act, or another law or regulation, prevents gun registries by States or the Federal government. Is that true? Is there any way around that?

It looks, from a plain text reading of what I think is the relevant section, that the Firearm Owners Protection Act regulates what the attorney general may do, not what the states may do. Is there relevant case law? What about a gun registry not set up by the attorney general? A state based one? What about a gun registry run as a public private partnership?

posted by anonymous to Law & Government (4 answers total)

ConcealedCarry.org has a good summary of which localities currently have gun registrations. (Scroll down a bit.) Only DC and Hawaii register all firearms, but other states require registrations for some classes of firearms. CC.org is of course a pro-gun site, but they've been an accurate resource for me.

FOPA doesn't overrule some parts of the National Firearms Act which require registration of so-called NFA weapons, mainly fully-automatic machine guns and short-barreled weapons, but also suppressors. To possess those, you have to pay at $200 fee ("tax stamp") per device (i.e. a short-barreled rifle with a suppressor is a two-stamp weapon, requiring a filing for each of those features) and some paperwork filed with the ATF; you can't complete assembly of the weapon, and in some cases take possession of the parts, until the approval comes through, which usually takes months.

You won't be the last person trying to do an end-run around FOPA, but preventing a registry is a high priority for pro-gun folks. Currentlygun ownership data exists mostly in the files of thousands of gun dealers across the nation, mostly on paper, and they have very little incentive to participate in any kind of unified registry. The exception is the government office which handles the files of dealers who have closed their operations, and that office is prevented, by FOPA, from computerizing the records.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:28 PM on February 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Massachusetts keeps track of gun transactions which some people believe functions as a de facto registry.

States can also track and share information about people who aren't allowed to buy guns in their state for whatever reason.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:44 AM on February 26, 2018

It's generally believed that many law enforcement agencies keep gun ownership information they are not supposed to based on some excuse or bureaucratic trick. How true it is, and whether they can actually make use of the information is not known.

Here in Connecticut, when you buy a gun from store, a copy of the paperwork goes to the state. I believe the state is supposed to forward it to your local police department. Your local police department definitely does keep track of any gun information that it obtains and actually asks you to register your guns with them voluntarily for . So in practice, there is an inefficient and unreliable gun registry.

Registering guns is all about solving crimes and not about preventing gun violence.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:58 AM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

You've probably already seen this, and maybe it's even what prompted the question, but I found this GQ article on how gun tracing actually works to be insightful.
posted by togdon at 10:49 AM on February 26, 2018