If you own a gun, it’s your responsibility to know whether or not it is stolen. If you buy a gun and later find out that it was stolen, there are a few things you can do to check if it is. However, there are also some disadvantages to doing so. If someone steals your gun or you find out that one of your guns is stolen, how do you find that out? If the gun was stolen from you personally, then contacting the police department as well as the original owner is likely your first step. You may also call other local gun shops or even ask a friend with access to police records to see if they come up in their system as reported stolen. That being said, let’s take a look at exactly how to check if your gun is stolen and the pros and cons of doing so.
How To Check If A Gun Is Stolen
- Go to the local police department and ask if they have a record of your gun (accomplished by calling their non-emergency contact number).
- If the police department does have a record of your gun, you can then request that they send you a copy of the report and/or the original police report.
- If the police department does not have a record of your gun, or if you don’t know who owns it (like in cases where it was stolen from you), then you can check with local pawn shops or pawn brokers to see if they have sold it or know who did. In this case, call them up and ask them to search their records for anyone who has sold your gun within the last year. You may also want to ask them to search through their records for anybody who has tried to sell your gun but failed due to its serial number being invalid. The disadvantage here is that most pawn shops do not keep records for more than that year, so they can only search their own records. The advantage is that you have a better chance of finding out who sold your gun if they keep records.
- If your gun was stolen from you, then the first thing you should do is contact the police department and ask for their report on the theft. This will hopefully lead to them having a record of your gun being stolen. If not, then you can go to local pawn shops or pawn brokers and ask them if anyone has tried to sell your gun recently (within the last year). If they do have records of such activity, then this will tell you whether or not someone has tried to sell your gun since it was stolen from you. If someone has tried to sell it, then this will potentially be an indication that it is indeed stolen and could be used as evidence against the person selling it.
- If your gun was stolen from you, then the firs step is to find out if it was stolen. If the police department did not have a record of your gun, then you can search through pawn shops and pawn brokers. However, keep in mind that most pawn shops do not keep records for more than a year and therefore they can only search their own records. The disadvantage is that you have a better chance of finding out who sold your gun if they keep records.
Nics And Fcra Checks
- If you bought a gun from a dealer, you can check if it was stolen by running a NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) or FCRA (Federal Crime Reporting Act) check. This is done by the gun dealer, but you may also be able to access the database yourself at sites like InstantCheck.net or NCIS.gov. If you run the system and it comes back with a hit indicating that the gun was stolen, you can then return it to the dealer.
- If the police have no record of your gun being stolen, but you know for sure that it was stolen from you, then contact the original owner as well as all of the pawn shops/brokers that sold it in the last year.
- If none of those methods work or if you don’t know who originally owns your gun, then contact a local pawn shop or pawn broker who has records and ask them to search through their records for anyone who has tried to sell or pawn that gun within the last year.
- If they find someone selling it within the last year, they can check their records on how many times that person tried to sell again. They will then likely send you a copy of the report and/or the original police report.
- If your gun was stolen from you, then use your local pawn shops or pawn brokers to search their records for anyone who has tried to sell your gun but failed due to its serial number being invalid. The disadvantage here is that most pawn shops do not keep records for more than that year, so they can only search their own records. The advantage is that you have a better chance of finding out who sold your gun if they keep records.
- If none of the above options are feasible or possible, then it’s best to call your local police department again and ask them if there is any other way you can check whether or not your gun was stolen (accomplished by calling their non-emergency contact number). If there is no way that the police department can help you, then it should be safe to assume and ask them to check their records for your gun. They will then look through their records and call you back in a few days to let you know if they have found it. If they do not find it, then they will tell you who the police have arrested for the crime.
- If your gun was stolen more than a year ago, then the chances of finding out who sold it are slim to none. The only other way is if the person has been arrested and charged with a crime in that time frame.
Using Recovery Identification Information
- After you have filed the report, contact the original owner to see if he or she can help you find out who stole it. In cases where the gun was stolen from you personally, call up your local pawn shops and pawn brokers to see if they have sold it. If not, ask them to search their records for anyone who has tried to sell your gun but failed due to its serial number being invalid. The disadvantage here is that most pawn shops do not keep records for more than that year, so they can only search their own records. The advantage is that you have a better chance of finding out who stole your gun if they keep records.
- If none of the above methods work, then either contact the police department again and ask them what they know about your gun’s ownership or go ahead and contact the original owners yourself (accomplished by calling their non-emergency contact number).
- If it was, then you can go through their records to see if it was ever returned or sold. There are several advantages to this step as well. For one, you will have a record of your gun that the police can look for in any future investigations. You also have a record of your gun that the police can use in their own investigation as well as any future lawsuits against the person who stole your gun.
- If you do not know who owns your gun, then call up pawn shops and pawn brokers and ask them to search their records for anybody who has tried to sell your gun but failed due to its serial number being invalid. This is because most pawn shops do not keep records for more than a year, so they will only be able to search their own records. The advantage is that you have a better chance of finding out who sold your gun if they keep records since they will be able to the state and city you were burglarized. If possible, you should also contact the police department or the local police station where your gun is registered.
- If your gun was stolen from you and it has a serial number, then you can check to see if they have a record of it being stolen by searching their records for that serial number. The disadvantage here is that they may not be able to tell you if it was ever reported stolen, so it would be best to also check with pawn shops or pawnbrokers as well as with local police departments.
Summary
There are a few different ways to check if a gun is stolen. First and foremost, you should check that the serial number on your gun matches the serial number in the database. If the number doesn’t match and you bought the gun at a licensed dealer, you can call them to see if they will help you run the serial number through the national crime information center database. If the gun was stolen from you personally, then contacting the police department as well as the original owner is likely your first step. You may also call other local gun shops or even ask a friend with access to police records to see if they come up in their system as reported stolen. If you purchased a gun and see that it is stolen from the database, there is a chance that it was recovered by the police. You can access the serial number and information about the gun by entering it into the NFRTR database.
