re: Question about "registered guns"

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The FFL has to keep the forms for as long as they remain in business.

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Currently, 4473s are only required to be kept for 20 years. After 20 years the FFL can destroy them, it's not on the government to do the destroying here. When the ATF audits a dealer they only go through their last year of 4473s at the FFL's location. So, even if they were illegally recording the info from the 4473 (which some report they have seen) it would still make for a very incomplete list.

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All the government would be able to make a list of from background checks is how many firearms you have and if they are a long gun or handgun.

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They would not know how many firearms you have since as many firearms can be purchased on 1 4473/background check as a customer wants. So, for a given background check, they only "know" John Smith is trying to purchase at least 1 long gun/handgun/other, but it could also be 100.

The only exception to all of this is if you are purchasing more than 1 handgun in a 5 day (shops business days, not 5 running days) time period. In that case a separate form is filled out by the FFL which gives all of your info as well as all of the guns info to the FBI contract company and local CLEO. This is supposed to be destroyed after a relatively short period of time. However, I think this info is what the ATF recently caught some shite about for not destroying, but I could be misremembering.