checking for mental health prohibitors in those obtaining 80 % lowers (ca only)

People without a FFL 6 or 7 license may produce up to three firearms in a calendar year solely for personal use, provided they do not use a 3D printer or a CNC milling machine, and that they comply with other requirements. Any person manufacturing a firearm from unserialized products they may have obtained from other sources with frames or receivers not validly serialized must apply to the DOJ for a unique serial number prior to manufacturing or completing the frame or receiver. ​see Cal. Penal Code §§ 29180(b), (c); 29182

With the reports detailing the concerns over regulation of unserialized privately made firearms, the CA DOJ enacted the law requiring all privately made firearms (80% lowers) be registered in CFARS and have a DOJ assigned serial number engraved to the right depth. CA law mandates that the DOJ regulate registration of privately made lowers. Therefore, all lowers are registered with the DOJ and not in an FFLs acquisition and dispositions logs (A & D logs/bound book) unless the possessor of the lower is subsequently sent to a gun smith or the lower is exchanged in a private party transfer facilitated by an FFL and then at a later date given back to the original owner via FFL again.



Per 28 C.F.R. § 25.6, the DOJ is not authorized to run a NICS background check or to mandate the prospective buyer fill out a 4473. DOJ uses a PFEC or certificate of eligibility [citation] when the person applies for their serial number. The DOJ notes on its form BOF 116 that it cannot check the same federal databases that an FFL can so there may be federal prohibitors that the DOJ warns is incumbent on the applicant to know before finishing their process of applying for a serialized privately made firearm. This begs the issue of diminished capacity when signing the BOF 4009 B forms which will be discussed later. However, upon receipt and signing that document, the consent to understanding the federal prohibitions, even not fully defined in the BOF form, bestows the responsibility upon the signee for life.


The DOJ can see records from Welf and Inst Code section 8103/ 5250 holds that still apply such as a 5 year prohibitor or the lifetime prohibitor for multiple 5150s in a year but if there is another mental health prohibitor under the Federal Brady Act, they may be unable to see such a prohibitor and grant application for a unique serial number. This begs the question by gun control activist groups like Everytown that individuals who are prohibited from possessing a firearm due to mental health adjudications not available for the DOJ to see in its databases may be able to possess and control a firearm. Although the law charges individuals with knowing their status, if the DOJ erroneously grants a serial number for a privately made firearm because the applicant's records did not match any records with DOJ then the applicant now has actual possession of a privately made firearm even when there may be an active Brady prohibition.



The issue that Giffords et al may raise is that there is no way of notifying DOJ that person needs to be in the APPS or securing a search warrant for the persons property to recover the prohibited firearm as there was not disqualifying application that would have triggered a NICS denial notification per the BSCA, as BSCA applies to FFLs, 4473s, and NICS denials; not erroneous COE/PFEC proceeds. Since gun control groups raise many concerns over the "time to crime" statistics, there is relatively little to no data for CA's privately made firearms that were given an erroneous proceed because DOJ missed a federal Brady mental health prohibition during its search through their approved databases. The main way for that firearm to be discovered and recovered is for either someone to notify LE or the DOJ of knowledge of the individual's prohibited status beyond mere speculation or for the individual to commit a crime where LE has probable cause based on a totality of information there is probability that contraband, evidence or a person will be found in [specific] place. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983).
The search warrant would detail how LE believes there are specific items to be seized as evidence, contraband, fruits, or instrumentalities of violations of 18 U.S.C. § 922 (g)(4). Reasonable suspicion is not enough to warrant a search warrant. 





But if the applicant were to take that privately made firearm and take it to a gun smith for extensive repairs or changes that last longer than a week according to federal law they would need to submit to a NICS background check because the CA COE and DOJ assigned serial number do not qualify under federal law for a gunsmith to return the privately made firearm even with its CA compliant serial number without making the transferee fill out a new 4473 and run a NICS background check which would reveal the undiscovered Brady prohibition.


Regardless when Giffords and Everytown discuss time to crime, many persons, they assert, would not be repairing their firearms or upgrading them via a gunsmith and therefore still evade a 4473 and NICS background check before the average time to crime elapsed thus still posing a risk that the person used the firearm in an unlawful dangerous manner. 
Gun rights groups like FPC and GOA would assert that most privately made firearm owners are lawful citizens who are not using firearms for whatever reason whenever and small loopholes in background checks for privately made firearms are minimal in stopping crime.