And I missed the 24 hour window by about 16 hours how screwed am I ?

Why did you take so long?

Say goodbye to your dag
ETA: Apologies, I thought this thread was in GD. Carry on

Are you a buyer or do you hold an FFL?

Nonlicensees have no requirement to respond to an ATF trace request.

Thank you

The only one I ever had, I checked, double-checked, triple-checked and assured the ATF lady on the phone that I did not have, and had never had, that serial number, and that she needed to go back to the mfg for better info.   That was the last I heard of it.   Then again, my clientele is very unlikely to ever be involved in a trace.

Eight to ten years ago Hyatt Gun & Coin shipped me a handgun. USPS tracking showed it stuck in the Coppell, TX mail distribution center for over a week. Eventually the box was returned to Hyatt empty. Hyatt called to confirm I didn't receive the gun. Then the next day a nice lady with NTC called and it took me several "I never received that gun" before she was convinced.

But remember, isn't the clientele that's being traced, its the firearm.
An ATF firearm trace could be:
A stolen firearm that police recovered.
A firearm that was transferred by you, then subsequently traded by the buyer to another dealer. In turn sold by that dealer.
A personal sale/GunBroker/EE/local gun forum sale by one of your customers. Completely legal and not uncommon.

I've had ATF NTC traces on:
A Glock 26 frame that was in my safe. (dealer in GA had parted out several Glocks on GunBroker, cops ran the serial# from the slide, not the frame)
A Kahr "MP6"........a model that does not exist. I did find a Kahr "PM9" with the same serial#.
A Taurus TCP pistol that my customer had in his safe. I had him take a photo of the pistol on top of that days newspaper.

They called the phone I use for the store phone but I never answer it. I had them change the number to my personal cell phone why we were on the phone. I guess my IOI set up that number to contact but I told him I never answer it.

So.........why would you have a store phone# that you dont answer?

Here I was expecting something like I was in a coma, Grandmas birthday party in Vegas, hunting out of country, etc.

I have an FFL to compliment my main business for LE Sales. The phone is so I can call potential customers without giving them my personal cell phone I don’t advertise the number, I try to do all of my correspondence through email or through the chat option on my website.

I wanted things like this to come to my personal cell which that should be fixed now.

When I was an FFL, I got a trace request on a gun I had sold to an ARFcom member through the EE. To make things even more interesting, my buyer was a cop. At the time I sold him an AR15 pistol he was attending a state police academy.


I reached out to him after the trace and he didn't have a clue. He said he had resold the gun some months earlier.

Who do I contact for that?

A late trace req is not a big deal, believe it ir bit most dealers are pretty adversarial with the ATF. I worked for a dealer once who did a lot of 80% stuff and we got false trace requests all the time because ATF went off the barrel or slide SN. We did have one on a good customer that we told him about his trace. Apparently he reported it stolen, I guess after all these years ATF recovered it.

Unlikely you will ever hear about again.

My longest delay was 5 days when I was hiking in the Grand Canyon for a week and had no cell service.

This makes me feel better, thank you!

As mentioned, it's not really the clientele being traced, but the gun....

I've probably had 10 trace requests over the past 17 years.  9 of those 10 were firearms sold to people I know well (multiple repeat customers, friends, etc.). Only 1 was to a customer who was a "once and done" type.

The most recent batch of requests were all in the 10-12 year range from my disposition.  I figured it was really test of my recording keeping than anything else.....

Certain clientele are not likely to allow thing to happen that would result in a trace.

I have those kind of clients too.

I'm convinced that a firearm trace sole purpose is to identify dealers who (through no fault of their own) ATF wants to blame for gun crime.



So, a dealer could have a perfect bound book, perfect 4473's, every customer transaction approved by FBI NICS or hold a NICS exempt state firearm permit.......and the dealer faces the consequences, not the customer.

If only we had a law that protected dealers who follow the law from frivolous lawsuits .