Biden just quietly created an executive action registry

[rebase]

FACT SHEET: The Biden Administration’s 21 Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence | The White House

President Biden has made historic progress on actions to reduce gun violence. To implement his comprehensive strategy to reduce gun crime, the Biden Administration has taken more executive action to reduce gun violence than any other president’s at this point in their Administration. Today, the...

www.whitehouse.gov

First of all. Steppers gonna step.

Second. Biden just quietly made a defacto registry by removing the ability of FFL holders to destroy records after 20 years. They now have to maintain them for the length of their license. And submit them to the ATF after that. Which means 4473s are going to be around forever.

Therefore we now have a federal registry.

Like I’ve said before. I could easily build a searchable database of most firearm owners in America for just a few thousand dollars given the current state of ATFs digitization efforts. I’d be very surprised if a similar system hasn’t already been built.

This should be illegal but steppers keep stepping.

 

[Pepi]

'federal registry' of mostly law-abiding citizens.

 

[GRAVES219]

FACT SHEET: The Biden Administration’s 21 Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence | The White House

President Biden has made historic progress on actions to reduce gun violence. To implement his comprehensive strategy to reduce gun crime, the Biden Administration has taken more executive action to reduce gun violence than any other president’s at this point in their Administration. Today, the...

www.whitehouse.gov

First of all. Steppers gonna step.

Second. Biden just quietly made a defacto registry by removing the ability of FFL holders to destroy records after 20 years. They now have to maintain them for the length of their license. And submit them to the ATF after that. Which means 4473s are going to be around forever.

Therefore we now have a federal registry.

Like I’ve said before. I could easily build a searchable database of most firearm owners in America for just a few thousand dollars given the current state of ATFs digitization efforts. I’d be very surprised if a similar system hasn’t already been built.

This should be illegal but steppers keep stepping.

I watched a Vice documentary on illegal arms dealers, and they talk with the ATF extensively. I'm not sure if they just did this for "show" but the actual filing system they showed for everything is very outdated and vague. It's not digital, and contains little info. similar to using a card catalog at a library. They also said that there is almost NO way to trace a firearm after it's sold from the original FFL. Even serialized, they become "ghost guns". Now I'm not sure what having millions of 4473s on file will accomplish, other than tying a firearm to the original owner, if/when it is used in a crime.

tinfoil-hat me would say maybe they use them to find all gun owners to relinquish them of their weapons...

 

[rebase]

I watched a Vice documentary on illegal arms dealers, and they talk with the ATF extensively. I'm not sure if they just did this for "show" but the actual filing system they showed for everything is very outdated and vague. It's not digital, and contains little info. similar to using a card catalog at a library. They also said that there is almost NO way to trace a firearm after it's sold from the original FFL. Even serialized, they become "ghost guns". Now I'm not sure what having millions of 4473s on file will accomplish, other than tying a firearm to the original owner, if/when it is used in a crime.

tinfoil-hat me would say maybe they use them to find all gun owners to relinquish them of their weapons...

Those Vice docs are actually informative in terms of showing what is being done at the ATF. They are digitizing all of the 4473s into pdf format. Non-text searchable but easily archivable by FFL and likely make/model/serial number. They skirt the database law in this way. However with a few grand in computing power and an open source OCR library, those records are now a fully searchable registry!

 

[GRAVES219]

Correct, however the process of doing so, will take so long, I'm not sure if we'll be around to see it.

 

[COOPADUP]

Frankly I am surprised that they hadn't tried doing this sooner.

 

[76Too]

Frankly I am surprised that they hadn't tried doing this sooner.

They did. They’ve been trying for over fifty years.

 

[rebase]

Correct, however the process of doing so, will take so long, I'm not sure if we'll be around to see it.

Not really. I can analyze 1 million pages for $1500 on AWS. https://aws.amazon.com/textract/pricing/

Over estimate and assume one 4473 per NICS check. Call it 428M NICS checks since 1998 per: https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view

Thats $642k to process 20 years of 4473s.

At this scale it probably makes sense to spend the money on hardware to do work rather than using an external lambda service: Textract.

For custom hardware processing benchmarks - the most conservative estimates put 1 CPU core able to process about 1 page every 8 seconds. This means that with a pretty meager i5-4670 (https://openbenchmarking.org/test/system/tesseract-ocr) can process (60s/8s=7.5 pages/min * 60 min/hr * 24 hrs/day * 30 days/month = 324k pages per month with 1 CPU core (i5-4670 has 4 cores, so conservatively call it 1 million pages in a month using all 4 cores.)

It can be bought used on ebay for $50, but call it $150 for new. ($120 for a complete machine: amazon link

This means you can process all 428M records in 1 month for a meager (428M pages * 1M pages processed / chip = 428 chips required * $150 / chip) = $65k in hardware and 428 old computers developed in 2013.

This could probably be further optimized with higher density machines, GPUs, and/or better OCR software. But its quite reasonable for such a large workload being run in a single month.

 

[GRAVES219]

This could probably be further optimized with higher density machines, GPUs, and/or better OCR software. But its quite reasonable for such a large workload being run in a single month.

THIS just proves how out-of-the-loop I am with technology (and I'm only 34) I didn't know there was computers capable of processing paper forms like that.

I was picturing some crotchety "about to retire" ATF agent given the menial task of scanning each form into the computer via the ol' office photocopier.

 

[rebase]

THIS just proves how out-of-the-loop I am with technology (and I'm only 34) I didn't know there was computers capable of processing paper forms like that.

I was picturing some crotchety "about to retire" ATF agent given the menial task of scanning each form into the computer via the ol' office photocopier.

This all assumes the ATF has completed the the digitization of all paper forms into PDF image files. This is almost certainly not the case, last I heard, in 2016 they were up to about 2004 or 2008 or so and had to keep adding shipping containers in the parking lot. I'd imagine with the crazy reporting requirements now a days, most FFLs are sending in CDs or USB sticks instead of papers - which just makes the ATF's job easier. Still though they will all be digitized soon enough and in a turnkey registry. With only about $65k in hardware or $642k in AWS credits required to make it fully text searchable.

 

[GRAVES219]

This all assumes the ATF has completed the the digitization of all paper forms into PDF image files. This is almost certainly not the case, last I heard, in 2016 they were up to about 2004 or 2008 or so and had to keep adding shipping containers in the parking lot. I'd imagine with the crazy reporting requirements now a days, most FFLs are sending in CDs or USB sticks instead of papers - which just makes the ATF's job easier. Still though they will all be digitized soon enough and in a turnkey registry. With only about $65k in hardware or $642k in AWS credits required to make it fully text searchable.

sounds like they'll finish just in time to be disbanded haha

 

[DeadeyeChrista'sdad]

sounds like they'll finish just in time to be disbanded haha

We could only hope.

 

[Shadow01]

FACT SHEET: The Biden Administration’s 21 Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence | The White House

President Biden has made historic progress on actions to reduce gun violence. To implement his comprehensive strategy to reduce gun crime, the Biden Administration has taken more executive action to reduce gun violence than any other president’s at this point in their Administration. Today, the...

www.whitehouse.gov

First of all. Steppers gonna step.

Second. Biden just quietly made a defacto registry by removing the ability of FFL holders to destroy records after 20 years. They now have to maintain them for the length of their license. And submit them to the ATF after that. Which means 4473s are going to be around forever.

Therefore we now have a federal registry.

Like I’ve said before. I could easily build a searchable database of most firearm owners in America for just a few thousand dollars given the current state of ATFs digitization efforts. I’d be very surprised if a similar system hasn’t already been built.

This should be illegal but steppers keep stepping.

What happens if at the time you let your ffl expire and you send in the stack of 4473s you have and inadvertently fat finger the address and they get shipped to an unknown person/business and they are lost forever?

 

[DoggyDaddy]

What happens if at the time you let your ffl expire and you send in the stack of 4473s you have and inadvertently fat finger the address and they get shipped to an unknown person/business and they are lost forever?

 

[Twangbanger]

What happens if at the time you let your ffl expire and you send in the stack of 4473s you have and inadvertently fat finger the address and they get shipped to an unknown person/business and they are lost forever?

Prolly the same thing that happens if you send your tax payment to the wrong address. "You never paid." The burden is on you.

But don't worry. As we've often learned on INGO, the Feds can't create a database...and even if they did, so what? "It's for law enforcement." You like law enforcement, don't ya?

 

[manifest destiny]

How does the bureaucracy know all of the 4473 forms were sent upon FFL closure?
X number of arms sold, Y number of forms sent in when business closed. How does The Man know or reconcile?

 

[SheepDog4Life]

How does the bureaucracy know all of the 4473 forms were sent upon FFL closure?
X number of arms sold, Y number of forms sent in when business closed. How does The Man know or reconcile?

It's not just the 4473's, it's also all of the acquisition and disposition records... every gun in and out.

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/discontinue-being-federal-firearms-licensee-ffl

 

[manifest destiny]

It's not just the 4473's, it's also all of the acquisition and disposition records... every gun in and out.

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/discontinue-being-federal-firearms-licensee-ffl

Oh.

 

[GRAVES219]

What happens if at the time you let your ffl expire and you send in the stack of 4473s you have and inadvertently fat finger the address and they get shipped to an unknown person/business and they are lost forever?

"I took all of the forms via boat, and the boat sank, and I lost them all"