Corzine is bragging about New Jersey being set up with ATF’s eTrace system:
E-trace is a nationwide database maintained by the ATF that lists a firearm’s first purchaser, date of purchase and the retailer from which it was purchased. The information is compiled from police records of gun purchases provided by local departments, but until today was only accessible by the ATF and the police department that provided it.
Can someone explain to me how this isn’t a registry? How do they have this data if the NICS records are being properly destroyed as they are required to be under the law?
UPDATE: Dave Hardy thinks the reporter doesn’t know what he/she is talking about. I can easily buy that. When have they ever on this issue?
The “where did they come from blog” has it as a news release from Corzine, not just the article:
http://wheredidtheguncomefrom.typepad.com/blog/2007/08/nj-takes-steps-.html
Looks like an end run around the requirement that no federal data be used to create a registry: they (atf) are using data provided by local police departments to create the registry. I think many states require gun dealers to provide purchase data to local police — even if there is no gun “registration”.
In Washington state the police in the county the purchaser lives in are provided a record of all hand gun purchases from an FFL — they run a background check before giving an okay on the sale. The check is skipped if you have a CPL (the okay for purchase and for CPL is the same, except for the fingerprinting and $55.00 required for the CPL). Washington does not require registration of owners and private transactions are not recorded in any fashion.
It sounds like the atf is using this “local” data to build the registry that congress forbade them to build from the data gathered directly from FFL’s.
Hunh – I had always figured NJ kept the information from the permit to purchase a handgun on file anyway (IE, an informal registry).
i really do not under sanded the nj gun laws why do you have to get fingerprint to get a purchase permit after all the bad guys do not have to get fingerprint they just go down south get all the guns they want. so what is the gun law for. it for the good guys to get fingerprint like a criminal.