Live data from Hacker News

You commit three felonies a day

kottke.org

171–172 of 172 posts

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ask because several FFLs have reported having their local ATF agent bring printouts of their NICS check histories to check against the bound book. If true, clearly someone would have to be holding NICS records and the ATF would have to have access to them.

So, it's possible for them to hold the NICS check without holding the person data. NICS is identified by a transaction ID and, at least as I understood it (NICS is an FBI system, so we had limited insight from the ATF, and as a contractor, I had possibly less insight than an ATF agent proper), the PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is purged from the NICS check upon completion of the check. There might be, and…

Ok, thanks.

That's good information on the NICS records. It would seem, though, that given the information in the NICS check record and information attainable from a mandatory bound book inspection that the end result would be the personally identifying information of the transferee. It is good, at least, that this would necessarily be a manual process.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it's possible for them to hold the NICS check without holding the person data. NICS is identified by a transaction ID and, at least as I understood it (NICS is an FBI system, so we had limited insight from the ATF, and as a contractor, I had possibly less insight than an ATF agent proper), the PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is purged from the NICS check upon completion of the check. There might be, and…

Ok, thanks. That's good information on the NICS records. It would seem, though, that given the information in the NICS check record and information attainable from a mandatory bound book inspection that the end result would be the personally identifying information of the transferee. It is good, at least, that this would necessarily be a manual process.

I've always thought that the most querulous position the ATF has taken was on FFL closure. If an FFL closes up shop for any reason, they must ship all their records to the ATF.

I don't have any personal insight into what happens to them after that, but it seems like at least a sparse, time-delayed registry could be built from those records... which is perhaps the best kind of registry as private sales would skew the data substantially.

Post reply on HN