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question about gun owner death

jools68

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What happens when a gun owner dies and leaves behind a bunch of guns. I recently heard of this happening and thought how easily the weapons could then be used in a crime and get traced back to the dead person instead of whoever the gun happened to fall into the hands of. Is there anything in place to prevent this type of thing from happening? It's kind of scary to think that there are all kinds of guns roaming around without a living registered owner.
 

mzbk2l

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New to this topic? :)

Many (maybe most?) states do not have any form of gun registration. Certainly none of my guns have any "living registered owner," so nothing will change when I die.

Why would it suddenly be easy for those guns to be used in crime? That's like saying it would be easy to take over someone's house or use his car after he dies. Do you suppose no one is going to be responsible for those pieces of property? Why would guns be any different?
 

Legba

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Unless you live in a state that requires registration, then no, there's no way to prevent that kind of thing. Even then, the only way guns would get traced back to a dead person is if the deceased had bought them new from a dealer and had been the sole owner. That's part of the reason that registration schemes don't work very well - people die every day, and a lot of them are gun owners. You'd have to have a lot of people working full-time just to keep track of all the bequests.

I own a shotgun "registered" (with the dealer he bought it from in another state half a century ago) to a friend's dead father. Not a problem. The police generally don't know who owns what. If they ask for proof of ownership, ask them if they can producea receipt for their service weapon. Unless a piece is reported stolen (and specifically identified by make, model, and serial number), they have no reason to question it.

I've assisted the ATF in gun traces and most of them are dead ends (no pun intended).

Welcome to the forum.

-ljp
 

sv_libertarian

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jools68 wrote:
What happens when a gun owner dies and leaves behind a bunch of guns. I recently heard of this happening and thought how easily the weapons could then be used in a crime and get traced back to the dead person instead of whoever the gun happened to fall into the hands of. Is there anything in place to prevent this type of thing from happening? It's kind of scary to think that there are all kinds of guns roaming around without a living registered owner.
I trust you are not trolling and have an interest in guns, gun ownership and/or open carry?
 

deepdiver

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Why would the firearms of a deceased person "fall" into someone's hands? The deceased's heirs will take possession of the firearms. I have several firearms I inherited. Depending on the state, they may or may not be registered or listed on any probate forms. Now you have firearms in the same situation that one would find any private sale firearm. They are no more likely to "fall" into a criminal's hands than any other firearm owned by anyone else.
 

LEO 229

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This event comes up all the time.

A family member dies and the kids come to clear out the house and handle the affairs.

They either keep the guns, sell the guns, or (I hate this part) give the guns to the police for .... destruction!!! I have seen many beautiful guns get sent for destruction! :cry:

I have on many occasions talked them into pawning the guns as they were old and I KNOW someone would love to have it in their collection. Plus... the family can make some cash off them.

But some people do not care and go with destruction.
 

Felid`Maximus

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jools68 wrote:
What happens when a gun owner dies and leaves behind a bunch of guns. I recently heard of this happening and thought how easily the weapons could then be used in a crime and get traced back to the dead person instead of whoever the gun happened to fall into the hands of. Is there anything in place to prevent this type of thing from happening? It's kind of scary to think that there are all kinds of guns roaming around without a living registered owner.

There's nothing in place to address this in most places, and probably thereshouldn't beas I'm sure it most solutions to problems like this end up causingmore problems than they solve. Most of the time it also wouldn't trace back to the person whopreviously owned the gun becausethere is no registry, and private transactions are common, although it may be possible to trace itthrough credit card transactions and such like most other items. Most of the timethe idea ofcriminals stealing guns from dead peoplewouldn't be an issue anyway because I would thinkin most cases peoplewill awayfirearms with their other belongingsonce they die.

To me it would bemore scary if there was a database that showed all the registered owners so hackers could break into the databases and thenknow which houses tobreak into because they could tell which had guns.

It is impossible to "stop guns from getting into the wrong hands." Guns are just items, and anyone can get ahold of one if they want it enough.Heckzip guns aren't even all that hard to make, and you can find online tutorials about how to make machineguns fromsheet metal.If all guns were banned, the criminals would still have just as many guns as they need.
 
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