HA HA HA… you probably thought this thread was about doing something illegal. You silly rabbit.
Anyway…
I have noticed that whenever people take a photo of their rifle, pistol or whatever firearm, I almost always see the owner black out or blur the serial number.
I have for the life of me tried to think of a reason why it would be bad if someone knew the serial number of your gun?
Obviously, if the weapon was stolen you would certainly want to hide it, but I would like to think people posting photos of their rifles, they are not stolen. Could be the case, but I doubt it.
You see this in almost every case on GB as well as forums like this.
So why all the covering up and what is the worst thing that can happen if someone on the interwebs saw your serial number?
Some people call it an anti-fraud protection. Someone could steal the pics of your gun and claim that they’re his or use them in a fake gunbroker auction.
There’s a similar trend in car forums with license plates. IIRC, I read that it started on some California car forum. People would photoshop their plates to avoid identification by police or insurance companies for illegal mods.
I also seem to recall being told once that someone can use your serial to report the gun as stolen from them. Don’t know how true this is since I’ve never had to report a stolen gun before knock on wood
In some ways you are correct. You never know who is out there trolling the internet and what they might do. Especially the hard-core Anti Gun zealots. What’s to stop them from reporting your gun as stolen or saying it is modified to less than legal standards. They take the serial # and feed it to the ATF/LEO’s and next thing you know you have visitors. Just black/blur it out and avoid the headaches.
Idiots on the internet do stupid shit like report your gun stolen. Additionally Nigerians will sell your gun on the internet with your photos, best if they don’t actually have your serial number.
Well I doubt it is as remote as a 1 in 10 million chance, but I can eliminate the possibility completely with extremely minimal effort. And of course if somebody doesn’t feel the need to do so, that is their prerogative.
Yeah, just copy and paste the numbers around. Photoshop looks better if you know how to use it. I usually just use paint to cut out the whole number part.
I can’t say that all these horrible, life-changing things haven’t happened but does ANYONE have a first-hand account of the showing of a firearm serial number that led to any kind of loss ?
