doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Question, returning gun not as advertised?

You buy a shotgun advertised by private seller on internet auction site. Private seller is in another state and is not a ffl.

Private seller ships gun to ffl in your state along with copy of his driver's license for identification. 3 day inspection & return.

Shotgun is not as advertised. You ask your ffl to return the gun to private seller for refund.

Can your ffl legally ship the shotgun back to the private seller in another state?

Yes he can. The seller should always send a copy of a photo ID for the FFL's records. A non-FFL can ship a gun to an FFL for repairs etc. and have it returned. There is no difference, I believe , on a sale where the dealer completes the NICS check and any State requirements before turning the gun over to the purchaser. If the gun is refused, it can be returned to the sender and is entered into the records book of the FFL holder.

Thanx Bill but I beleive there is a difference, if gun is sent to gunsmith there is no intent to sell it just to get repairs made. Legal to return gun directly to owner. But firearms laws state if gun is left on consignment with ffl with intention for sale, owner must complete 44-73 form and NICS check to get his own gun back. Even if at ffl for one day. back to my question, it is more like consignment situation than your gunsmith example. But now its more complicated because owner iss in another state??? CB

I think the answer is unclear at best. If the buyer's ffl logs it in and then out to the buyer, a transfer has occurred. If it is not logged out, no transfer as far as i can tell. The tranfer, or lack of, is important because treasury reg 478.29 says no person shall receive or transport into their state any firearm obtained out of the state ( there are exceptions not relevant here). If there was a transfer in the buyer's state to the buyer, I think the seller is obtaining it from out of state, i.e., from the buyer. If there was no transfer to the buyer, the seller is getting his property back, but he didn't 'obtain' it from out of state.In the latter case, it is akin to the gunsmith returning my property to me. Two points: this is my opinion, don't rely on it; you get what you pay for, usually less, never more. This advise is free; therefore worth -----------.

I once shipped a gun directly back to a guy in another State when a swap we were trying to put together didn't work out. He did the same with my gun. We took the position that no transfer was taking place because we were just mutually returning each other's own guns.

Even though we were and still are both lawyers we were never sure whether we were within the terms of the Gun Control Act. I expect that the authorities might have taken the position that since we had both originally shipped to one another through our respective FFL's, both transfers had in fact taken place and that when we returned each other's guns it constituted a "re-transfer" which should have likewise have been done through the FFL's.

My be-labored point is that you'd be better off to always take the conservative position and ship through FFL's. Thankfully, the applicable Statute of Limitations on our transaction has long expired...Geo

I am not a lawyer, but I would think that no transfer has taken place if the buyer refuses to accept the merchandise, especially if there is any documentation of the customary 3-day approval period. I have been told by my FFL that he is required to log received guns withn 24 hours of receipt, whether or not I actually accept the gun. Logging the gun for BATF purposes is different from transferring the gun to me as the buyer. From a contractual standpoint, using the old offer/consideration/acceptance model, is there an actual transaction or just a negotiation that does not result in an actual sale?

I would suggest a call to the BATF rather than a group of opinions. This is serious stuff with the Feds.-Dick

I have already been through this mess with the ATF. The gun will need to be transfered to another FFL and the owner will have to fill out the 4473 to get it back. Best-JB

Thanx all. Good example of why you cant put faith in opinions or rationalizations. J.B. you hit nail on the had. I did independent study and found out as you said-ffl cant' retrun gun to private seller w/o going through ffl at sellers end and seller doing a 4473 and check to get his own gun back. Caveat emptor on private gun deals. CB