Handgun sales overwhelm DOL registry

Washington’s ‘rush’ on guns bogs down Dept. of Licensing

As yesterday’s Washington Times was reporting that “black Friday” gun sales were the sixth highest in history, on the heels of another report that National Instant Background Checks (NICS) had declined more than 14 percent from November 2012, the Washington Department of Licensing told this column that it is months behind on logging handgun transfers into the state’s pistol registry.

http://www.examiner.com/article/washington-s-rush-on-guns-bogs-down-dept-of-licensing

Dave Workman said:

logging handgun transfers into the state’s pistol registry.

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We have a pistol registry?

Difdi said:

We have a pistol registry?

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Not a legal one.

Difdi said:

We have a pistol registry?

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yes, when you buy a pistol from a gun dealer with an FFL the dealer fills out a form called a "pistol purchase application" which has your name, address, etc off of your ID/CPL. it also has the make, model, action, caliber, and serial of the pistol you're buying. it's a triplicated form. dealer keeps a copy, one copy goes to the sheriff who approves it (granting you the pistol) denies it (which can be appealed) or takes no action (most common, if this happens you wait 5 days to recieve the pistol unless you have a CPL) a copy goes to the Dept of Licensing, which originally was only for the purposes of regulatory compliance for the dealer.

of course somewhere in the late 90s the Dept of Licensing decided, "hey with computers we can just start scanning these forms in to the computer and make a registry" they then made the registry accessible to law enforcement.

voila Mission *creep* accomplished, Washington State Pistol Registry.... they now even offer a cute little form so you can change the registry voluntarily when you sell a pistol....

Actually I think Washington used to have a full mandatory pistol registry on the books, or a pistol purchase license that had to be approved by the sheriff or something like that, I looked back through the session law books awhile ago and pre-1961 there was some overly intrusive paper trail on handguns that was relaxed....

Has anyone brought a legal challenge to the registry? I just got my gun from Sirpuma this last Monday. I didn't even notice the registry form but now that it's been mentioned here I remember it.

gsx1138 said:

Has anyone brought a legal challenge to the registry? I just got my gun from Sirpuma this last Monday. I didn't even notice the registry form but now that it's been mentioned here I remember it.

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remember as they say "possession is 9/10ths of the law" of DOL is allowed to have these forms they can practically do what they want with them....

you'd have to successfully challenge the requirements for the pistol purchase application, which unfortunately I think the current SCOWA would uphold. It might be easier to go to the legislature, and argue that since NICS is now online the original justification for the PPA (making sure criminals don't buy guns) is now a moot point, but government never seems to end obsolete programs that well.....

Difdi said:

We have a pistol registry?

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Not that I like it or approve of this but this is a sales record not a registry. All the DOL knows is that you purchased a pistol on that day you could have sold it, given it away, lost it that same day the next week or 10 years down the road.

Jeff Hayes said:

Not that I like it or approve of this but this is a sales record not a registry. All the DOL knows is that you purchased a pistol on that day you could have sold it, given it away, lost it that same day the next week or 10 years down the road.

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But as you've said, it's still not good.

Becuase even if you do not still possess the registered pistol, there's still a record that you've purchased a handgun at some point. We don't need to go into black helicopter door to door confiscation worst case scenarios for that to be a problem, with the I 594 there's the issue if the government singles you out for something, say 594 passes and you buy a dealer gun afer that date, if the government serves a search warrant and doesn't find a pistol registered to you what's to stop them from tacking on a criminals charge for selling a gun outside a background if they don't find anything else to hang you on?

It's not just a minor inconvience, it's a major problem if the initiative passes....

Wowwie,,, just, Wowwieeeee!!!!!

EMNofSeattle said:

But as you've said, it's still not good.

Becuase even if you do not still possess the registered pistol, there's still a record that you've purchased a handgun at some point. We don't need to go into black helicopter door to door confiscation worst case scenarios for that to be a problem, with the I 594 there's the issue if the government singles you out for something, say 594 passes and you buy a dealer gun afer that date, if the government serves a search warrant and doesn't find a pistol registered to you what's to stop them from tacking on a criminals charge for selling a gun outside a background if they don't find anything else to hang you on?

It's not just a minor inconvience, it's a major problem if the initiative passes....

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How do you come up with this stuff??

"We cant find the evidence,,, Soooo we will just make up another crime "that we have NO evidence of"
and arrest, charge and take you to court for that"!

They Already DO That!!!!

But the simple answer to the question in the bolded is,,, "The CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES"...

Jeff Hayes said:

Not that I like it or approve of this but this is a sales record not a registry. All the DOL knows is that you purchased a pistol on that day you could have sold it, given it away, lost it that same day the next week or 10 years down the road.

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Every time I've been stopped with a pistol the registration comes over the radio. The first time they mentioned the pistol was "registered" to me (it was store-bought) but there was no record of my CPL on file (another adventure.)
My other pistol I've had taken off me I believe four times, with another two where the officer asked about it but wasn't particularly unnerved by it, the first time being approximately three years ago, and they have record of me having it (and I have record of them having record of me having it) but it's still "registered" to some male subject out of Fife. They usually ask if I know who it's registered to or where I got it or whatnot.
So I guess the "registration" is just the last officiated purchase that the DOL FD has record of, even if LE has record of it belonging to someone else. Makes me wonder how networked their computer systems are.

sudden valley gunner said:

Not a legal one.

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It's legal because it's not maintained by a law enforcement agency. This was brought up at the judiciary committee meeting when it was asked why DOL was in charge of this and not a dept more suited like WSP. They came flat out and said because it would be illegal for WSP, but it's legal for DOL.

massivedesign said:

It's legal because it's not maintained by a law enforcement agency. This was brought up at the judiciary committee meeting when it was asked why DOL was in charge of this and not a dept more suited like WSP. They came flat out and said because it would be illegal for WSP, but it's legal for DOL.

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I guess that explains why my guns still aren't registered to me despite being 'caught' with them repeatedly.

Do they actually call it a registry or is it a record or last purchase or some other euphemism?

509rifas said:

Every time I've been stopped with a pistol the registration comes over the radio. The first time they mentioned the pistol was "registered" to me (it was store-bought) but there was no record of my CPL on file (another adventure.)
My other pistol I've had taken off me I believe four times, with another two where the officer asked about it but wasn't particularly unnerved by it, the first time being approximately three years ago, and they have record of me having it (and I have record of them having record of me having it) but it's still "registered" to some male subject out of Fife. They usually ask if I know who it's registered to or where I got it or whatnot.
So I guess the "registration" is just the last officiated purchase that the DOL FD has record of, even if LE has record of it belonging to someone else. Makes me wonder how networked their computer systems are.

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Just put pf curiosity what did you tell them when they asked "if I know who it's registered to or where I got it or whatnot."?

509rifas said:

Every time I've been stopped with a pistol the registration comes over the radio. The first time they mentioned the pistol was "registered" to me (it was store-bought) but there was no record of my CPL on file (another adventure.)
My other pistol I've had taken off me I believe four times, with another two where the officer asked about it but wasn't particularly unnerved by it, the first time being approximately three years ago, and they have record of me having it (and I have record of them having record of me having it) but it's still "registered" to some male subject out of Fife. They usually ask if I know who it's registered to or where I got it or whatnot.
So I guess the "registration" is just the last officiated purchase that the DOL FD has record of, even if LE has record of it belonging to someone else. Makes me wonder how networked their computer systems are.

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I wonder how that would work for my EDC which was purchased when I was a resident of another state. There is no record of me buying it in WA at all - granted that would be true of private transfers as well, but if you got an LEO with a bad attitude, I could get baited with "the gun is not legally mine."

Jeff Hayes said:

Just put pf curiosity what did you tell them when they asked "if I know who it's registered to or where I got it or whatnot."?

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Once one asked if it was registered to me (I think he already knew it wasn't) and then asked if I knew to whom it was registered. Told him they should have record of me having it since it's been in police custody of couple times. He asked if I knew the name, told him I didn't remember, I got it at a gun show, still have the receipt somewhere. A couple minutes before the officer had asked me "was that you with the vests?" referring to an incident where a kevlar vest I had got on ebay turned out to be stolen (or so I was told) from Orange County Fire, he had handled that one. I still had the payment receipt, or that could have got ugly. He wasn't the one that stopped me, he was assisting the one who did along with two others, he even corrected two who tried to tell me they were going to keep my spring-assist because it was "illegal." He was being nice and I didn't see any point in arguing the "I don't have to tell you anything" thing.
Another incident right after the officer ran it one of the other officers told him "I'm pretty sure it's been run before", then the reg said it was a male subject out of Fife. Told him I got it at a gun show, the last name of the dealer on the receipt. He asked if I liked it, how the recoil was, can it handle +P, etc. Again, he was being nice considering the circumstances (only time I've ever refused to give my name and admitted to carrying multiple weapons I wasn't handcuffed. Well, second time) so I didn't do the refuse to answer anything thing. It was actually a relatively enjoyable detention, as far as being detained goes.
I was never told "you need to get it registered" or "why do you even have this" or anything stupid like that.

Both of those incidents are on my youtube channel.

acmariner99 said:

I wonder how that would work for my EDC which was purchased when I was a resident of another state. There is no record of me buying it in WA at all - granted that would be true of private transfers as well, but if you got an LEO with a bad attitude, I could get baited with "the gun is not legally mine."

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I don't believe that would be the case, at least not in WA. Last documented transfer does not prove ownership. By law possession by itself is considered prima facia evidence of ownership.
If the registrant were to report it stolen, that would be another case. But you don't even have to be the registrant to do that, if you have a serial number you could fill out the stolen firearm form, but there's that perjury matter.
While there may be cops out there who might try to say it's not "legally yours" because you are registered to it, if they try to act on that, they would be violating the law by trying to deprive you of your property under color of law. Big no no.

acmariner99 said:

I wonder how that would work for my EDC which was purchased when I was a resident of another state. There is no record of me buying it in WA at all - granted that would be true of private transfers as well, but if you got an LEO with a bad attitude, I could get baited with "the gun is not legally mine."

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No you couldn't, at least not yet. I-594 will be used to cause problems like that if it passes, mark these words.

The registry is not mandatory and does not even *officially* exist. it is the result of a law which gives them a copy of a form, when the original intent of the law was for compliance actions against dealers, the law was never intended to be a registry, in fact the legislature relaxed the criteria for owning a handgun significantly when that law was passed. they used to keep copies of these forms in giant file boxes by name of the dealer, before computers it was practically impossible to use it as a registry because there was so much information just sitting in archives...


you won't get hooked for that, at least not legally....

509rifas said:

Do they actually call it a registry or is it a record or last purchase or some other euphemism?

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DOL Refers to it as a registry. At least they did numerous times during the meeting.

massivedesign said:

It's legal because it's not maintained by a law enforcement agency. This was brought up at the judiciary committee meeting when it was asked why DOL was in charge of this and not a dept more suited like WSP. They came flat out and said because it would be illegal for WSP, but it's legal for DOL.

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Do you happen to know what statute or what have you makes it illegal fo LE to maintain a registry?