And who, pray tell, is going to do the head rolling?
A little story: I was stationed in Germany in 1981 and took with me a snubnose S&W .38. To bring it back again I had to prove that I had bought it before leaving the States.
I wrote to BATF & they replied with a nice letter that stated “our records show that you purchased this revolver SN#XXXXX on October 12, 1973. You may use this letter as proof of prior purchase.”
That was 33 years ago. It’s illegal to place 4473’s in a central file or database? Hmm.....
If you included the make, model and serial number of the revolver in your letter, then they traced the revolver to you by contacting the maker, the wholesaler, and the retailer to obtain the information. That is legal under current law.
It would be illegal if they could put your name into a search engine and the revolver popped up.
There is an exception. There is a law requiring sales of more than two handguns in a week to an individual be reported on a special form. That was done *before* Congress forbid establishment of a national registry. Those guns are in a national database, which was grandfathered in.