Ryan Horsley brings attention to some new software intended to help FFLs out. The EZ 4473 software he mentions is interesting to me.
The first thing I thought of when I saw it was: Why didn’t I think of that?!
The second thing was: Good luck keeping up with 4473 changes. In the 7 years that I’ve been buying guns I’ve dealt with 3 different versions of the 4473 if my memory serves me correctly. The older “yellow form” 4473′s wouldn’t have fit well in a typical PC printer. I’d wager that’s a big reason something like this didn’t come out earlier. The ATF moved the 4473 onto standard 8.5″x11″ paper sometime late in 2005. If they ever to back to something different customers of EZ 4473 might have a few issues.
Now, the reason software such as this is needed is because you want to ensure that the customer fills in the form properly. A clerk can sometimes miss the obvious mistakes, like the customer writing “Y” into a field instead of “Yes.” While a monkey could be trained to understand that they’re functionally identical, the BATFE won’t stand for such violations.
