I don't really have a problem with tracking bulk sales of firearms.
If someone buys 5 or more civilian AK-47s at one go, I think this might be worthy of some scrutiny. How many people legitimately
do this kind of thing? Heck, if the same person applies for a NICS check 5 times
in a month, I think that might be worthy of some scrutiny.
This sort of thing would be trivial for the NICS system to check. If the same name is presented for processing 5 or more times in a month, that triggers some kind of scrutiny.
That said, the BATFE has recently been caught with its pants down. They allowed firearm sales to known gun traffickers, even when the gun dealer warned them that they thought it was a bad sale. The BATFE instructed them to let the sales go through.
Even if you assume the
best intentions, they were allowing firearms to be sold to traffickers in the hopes that it would help them trace them through various connections. But if you assume the
worst intentions, they were intentionally allowing illegal firearm sales
to pad their numbers for some nefarious purpose. ATF agents have alleged just this - that it was all about padding statistics for the BATFE to help justify their existence.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7357550n