Lying to ATF on gun-purchase form yields few prosecutions, data shows [View all]

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From a year ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/09/lying-atf-gun-purchase-form-yields-few-prosecutions-new-data-shows/

Lying to ATF on gun-purchase form yields few prosecutions, data shows

Analysis by Glenn Kessler
The Fact Checker
June 9, 2022 at 3:00 a.m. EDT

“Lying on an ATF form 4473 is a federal violation and can lead to severe penalties and jail time. Don’t lie and buy.”
— Tweet from the Houston office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), Sept. 8, 2021

Form 4473 — the Firearm Transaction Record — is a six-page document that must be filled out whenever someone buys a firearm from a licensed firearm dealer.

The form asks questions including whether the person buying the gun is a felon, whether the person is a fugitive from justice or convicted of domestic abuse, whether the person is addicted to drugs and whether the person is the actual buyer of the firearm.

This tweet by ATF’s Houston office led a swarm of Twitter users to ask why the bureau didn’t charge Hunter Biden, the president’s son, for allegedly lying on Form 4473 when he purchased a handgun in October 2018. The controversy prompted us to request statistics from the Justice Department to determine whether someone falsely filling out the form faced much of a risk of prosecution.

It took months to obtain the data. The answer, it turns out, is no.

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