TexasCHLforum.com

I’m not concerned about small business FFLs
It’s the Cabelas, Bass Pros, and Academies that concern me.

tk1700, thanks for sharing that.

Questions:

What software system are you using for 4473s?
Is that (or is there) an industry standard, or are there other software packages for this purpose?
How does the system store the 4473s - a database, PDf, CSV etc. ?
Does it store information other than the 4473 - Photo ID scans for example?

Any other FFLs want to share your experience?

Cabelas has been using digital forms for years, and Academy uses them now.
Cabelas process for buying a gun is now very long and requires multiple sign-offs along the way. It took me approx 45 minutes to buy a .22 pistol, and that was after waiting 30 minutes for a spot on the counter. This was at a time when they weren't very busy at all.

I am shocked - Shocked! - that the government is scanning those 4473s!

So currently the resultant PDFs are tabbed through by people who are looking for a serial number. The AI/OCR technology exists to automate that process. All it takes is a politicized FBI or ATF to make that change, and we have that too.

Technically it's not a gun registry, but it would perform the same function. All the data is in place to make it a true registration overnight.
Digital 4473s eliminate the most inaccurate and inefficient element of the process. That's a pretty good argument for supporting your local gun store (or private seller) at least until the digital forms are mandated.

"Federal law explicitly prohibits the creation of a federal firearm registry, but the Biden administration is making one anyway. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has collected nearly one billion firearm purchase records. The government has now created a searchable digital database containing 866 million of these transactions, including some 54 million made in 2021 alone."

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/0 ... tent=daily

Contrary to Federal law, and to no one's surprise, the ATF is apparently building a database of gun sales.
I have always assumed that those 4473s turned in from FFLs who retire or die were probably scanned.
Now that all the big stores have gone to electronic 4473 forms, I think we are just accelerating that process. Those digital 4473s are each a record in an ever-expanding database.

Are digital 4473s now or soon to be mandatory?
Can a buyer insist on a paper version?
Does anyone know where and how those digital records are stored? Do they remain on-site at the store as the paper versions were, or is that whole dataset sent to ATF as part of the approval process?

For myself, I'm going to be hesitant to buy a gun from any store that does only electronic 4473s.