TexasCHLforum.com

You are right. There was a federal waiting period until 1998, when NICS went into effect.

- Jim

I already said, business as usual. If I want to buy through an FFL, I do. If I want to buy from an individual, I do. I pay with credit cards when it's convenient.

I don't pretend to be an expert on law, politics, or anything else except my narrow technical specialty, which is not relevant to this forum.

I will say that I don't think the federal government has the collective will or the manpower to perform any kind of nationwide seizure. I think an attempt to do that would trigger widespread civil obedience.

I could well be wrong and regret it.

- Jim

It's your decision, based on your assessment of what might happen in the future.

- Jim

From 1987 until 1994 (IIRC) you would have had to wait. You still do in some states. I have read that in California, you have to wait even to pick up your own weapon after it has been repaired. I don't know this for a fact.

- Jim

In states that have registration (which they are all careful to call something else), all firearms transfers are recorded and sent to the state police or a similar agency. Some states have even more obnoxious forms of registration, where you have to bring the weapon to a police station for inspection or submit a fired bullet and shell (Michigan and Maryland are examples).

Texas does not have this kind of registration. The state does not know or care what firearms you own.

When you purchase a firearm from an FFL, you have to fill out a Form 4473, which the FFL retains (theoretically) for 20 years. If the FFL goes out of business, he sends his collection of Form 4473s to BATFE. I don't know what they do with them.

When you purchase a firearm from an FFL and do not have a CHL, you have to be run through NICS. In the case of Texas, the check is performed by the FBI. Some states have the checks run by their state police or a regional network. In any case, that data is not supposed to be retained longer than 72 hours (IIRC).

Federal law prohibits the compilation of any such data at the federal level.

Paying with a credit card is probably more of a security hole than the federal procedures. There are few restrictions on what credit card companies can record or how they use the information.

If you make a private purchase in Texas and pay cash, there is no record of it except the seller's memory.

I don't worry about any of this. I just assume that the feds can find out anything that they want to know.

- Jim