IL: Confiscation - State Congress Orders Once Legal Owners to Turn in Guns

[SewTexas]

that would still mean that if a young couple had started a home the gun would be out of their home.

or if a young lady were out on her own, she now has no means of protection, say from an abuser. This law meant to "protect lives" could cost lives.

Illinois isn’t known for common sense legislation.

That's the truth

[srothstein]

Do you have proof that this is being done? I am not saying it isn't being done but not legally at least in Texas. But the government gets FISA warrants illegally too. It wouldn't surprise me if it is illegally being done. The word though is "illegal" at least in Texas. There are states that require a license for a specific gun. If you buy a gun in Texas supposedly there is no database linking your name and that gun.

It is not state related, but federal. A simple examination of a few facts leads me to believe that the federal government is building a database of most gun owners. The remainder can be guessed from state databases.

The "most gunowners" part are those who submit their names for background checks through NICS. Have you ever noticed that they won't run the check until they have a specific gun or list of guns you intend to buy? There must be a reason for that, because checking your eligibility doesn't require anything about the gun itself. If you are over 21, all guns are either legal or illegal, unless they are class III. If you are between 18 and 21, then all rifles and pistols are legal, and the dealers know not to sell you a handgun without needing NICS to tell them no.

So, why are they collecting that information? It must be sent to the FBI for some reason. And it is sent by computer transfer in most cases. Even if it is called in by phone, a clerk on that end is typing it all in to their computer to make the same checks. So we now have a record of the gun and the person buying it, and we have had it for all purchases from a licensed dealer for almost 25 years now (since shortly after the 1994 ban passed).

But it is illegal to keep those records, right? And the FBI agreed way back when to make sure to erase the records, right? But if you noted it way back when, the FBI agreed to delete the records within 24 hours. So they get to keep all of the records overnight and say they deleted them at 6:00 a.m. to get ready for the new day. All good, right?

Well, not quite. As any computer person knows, there is a trick that no one mentioned so far. Computer systems all have their hard drives backed up each night, usually in the early morning hours when their use is very low otherwise. And we now have backup tapes of all sales for more than 2 decades. That is a database of guns and gun owners. I have no faith that the tapes are not restored to another server system before they get destroyed. It is all sleight of hand.

Obviously, I have no proof that anyone is doing this. I really would like to think it isn't true since I generally believe in our government as being well-intentioned. I don't always agree with the intentions but I can usually see them as being for what the others think is the right thing to do. But I also am realistic enough to know that someone is going to think that this is the right thing to do. Some of the gun control proponents are true believers who really think this is what we should be doing as a country.

I also don't worry about it. If the FBI and NSA and other alphabet agencies did not already have me on a list of potentially dangerous people, they are even more incompetent than I believe they are. And that would be very disappointing. Our government has done too much for me to believe that these agencies are really that incompetent.

[SewTexas]

Do you have proof that this is being done? I am not saying it isn't being done but not legally at least in Texas. But the government gets FISA warrants illegally too. It wouldn't surprise me if it is illegally being done. The word though is "illegal" at least in Texas. There are states that require a license for a specific gun. If you buy a gun in Texas supposedly there is no database linking your name and that gun.

It is not state related, but federal. A simple examination of a few facts leads me to believe that the federal government is building a database of most gun owners. The remainder can be guessed from state databases.

The "most gunowners" part are those who submit their names for background checks through NICS. Have you ever noticed that they won't run the check until they have a specific gun or list of guns you intend to buy? There must be a reason for that, because checking your eligibility doesn't require anything about the gun itself. If you are over 21, all guns are either legal or illegal, unless they are class III. If you are between 18 and 21, then all rifles and pistols are legal, and the dealers know not to sell you a handgun without needing NICS to tell them no.

So, why are they collecting that information? It must be sent to the FBI for some reason. And it is sent by computer transfer in most cases. Even if it is called in by phone, a clerk on that end is typing it all in to their computer to make the same checks. So we now have a record of the gun and the person buying it, and we have had it for all purchases from a licensed dealer for almost 25 years now (since shortly after the 1994 ban passed).

But it is illegal to keep those records, right? And the FBI agreed way back when to make sure to erase the records, right? But if you noted it way back when, the FBI agreed to delete the records within 24 hours. So they get to keep all of the records overnight and say they deleted them at 6:00 a.m. to get ready for the new day. All good, right?

Well, not quite. As any computer person knows, there is a trick that no one mentioned so far. Computer systems all have their hard drives backed up each night, usually in the early morning hours when their use is very low otherwise. And we now have backup tapes of all sales for more than 2 decades. That is a database of guns and gun owners. I have no faith that the tapes are not restored to another server system before they get destroyed. It is all sleight of hand.

Obviously, I have no proof that anyone is doing this. I really would like to think it isn't true since I generally believe in our government as being well-intentioned. I don't always agree with the intentions but I can usually see them as being for what the others think is the right thing to do. But I also am realistic enough to know that someone is going to think that this is the right thing to do. Some of the gun control proponents are true believers who really think this is what we should be doing as a country.

I also don't worry about it. If the FBI and NSA and other alphabet agencies did not already have me on a list of potentially dangerous people, they are even more incompetent than I believe they are. And that would be very disappointing. Our government has done too much for me to believe that these agencies are really that incompetent.

yeh, ^^ what Steve said ^^^
I pretty much have figured I've been on a list since Reno's time....before that I really didn't pay attention.

[The Annoyed Man]

to me thats considered a database cause theyre keeping records for 20 years... so in 15 years if they decide to ban guns, the DOJ and ATF know exactly where to go to disarm the USA.

Look, I agree that it is the goal of the administrative state to disarm its citizens, and the left is hell bent on making that happen. I agree. But, I think you have an incomplete understanding of what a paper 4473 means.

I’ve done database administration and design. That’s not a database, and it is not searchable by computer. What it is, is an administrative nightmare of paperwork, nearly insurmountable, without anywhere near enough people to cover the job IF the gov’t were to ever proceed along those lines. In order to effectively do that, they would have to require all FFLs to turn in their 4473s. This is a paper record, and they are by law kept by the FFLs, not the gov’t. That was deliberately built into the law, so as to satisfy the gov’t’s desire for some kind of accountability, while protecting the rights of the individual to some degree of privacy from gov’t intrusion. There literally has to be at least 100 million or more 4473s recorded in the last 20 or 30 years. ATF takes six or eight months just to process the background check for a single suppressor, simply because they only have a dozen or so employees in DC tasked with processing the Form 4s and Form 1s they receive. Do they have the infrastructure in place to search through a minimum 100 million paper 4473s? No, not without some serious ramping up time, and not until all the paper forms have been digitized. Just ask the vehicle insurance industry how long it took to start digitizing paper records for car insurance. It took YEARS to accomplish, and there was no political group agitating against it. Until the Form 4473s can be digitized, they simply aren’t a searchable database. And because they aren’t searchable, they aren’t sortable. And because they aren’t sortable, you can’t make lists, for instance, to sort out those 4473s that record the purchase of an AR15 or AK47. And that record ONLY covers guns that were sold by FFLs. It doesn’t cover personal, face to face transactions, or inherited guns. And some of those purchases were legal gifts, so in many cases, the individual weapon recorded on the form is no longer owned by the person who bought it. Probably 1/3 to 1/2 of the guns in my safe were purchased in a private sale, and there is no 4473 leading to me for those guns.

And the answer is easy.....I can hang on to an old Mosin Nagant and a throw down .38 I have in my safe, with 100 rounds for each, and simply bury the rest somewhere. When ATF comes knocking on my door, “Oh...no I don’t own those anymore. I saw the writing on the wall while it was still legal, and I sold them off little by little at a gun show. No, I don’t remember their addresses. One of them I remember was named Joe, and he had dark hair and walked with a slight limp. That’s all I remember. He paid in cash, and I used to cash to buy my wife a nice dinner and to pay for a camping trip in our travel trailer.”

.....or..... “no, I don’t have them anymore. They fell out of the boat when I was fishing.”

Whatever. There is currently NO way to disprove anything you say - form 4473 notwithstanding. I my own case, I would have to hang on to my suppressors and turn them in, because they ARE registered, and it would be a federal felony for me to bury, sell, or sink them to avoid turning them in. But right now, all those form 4473s are nothing more than a storage headache for any FFL.