Bill Introduced to End ATF’s Illegal Registry

Federal law prohibits the government from maintaining a gun registry. It doesn’t stop the states from doing it, but the DC leviathan can’t lawfully do so.

However, that hasn’t stopped the Biden administration and his ATF from doing it anyway.

We know that they’ve been undergoing an effort to digitize the mountains of paperwork they currently have stored. This paperwork is, of course, Form 4473s sent by FFLs who have ceased operations for whatever reason. Legions of gun owners are in that paperwork, and while it may not be a complete record of who has what, it’s still effectively a gun registry.

Efficiency isn’t required for it to still be a thing.

However, now steps are underway to try and head this whole thing off.

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) and Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced legislation Thursday to block the formation of any federal gun registry.

The legislation, titled “No REGISTRY Rights Act,” is designed to protect Second Amendment rights while also addressing the overreach of the ATF, as witnessed under the Biden administration.

On February 1, 2022, Breitbart News pointed to a report showing the ATF has a database in which the agency had accumulated details on well over 9o0 million firearm purchases by Americans. According to the Washington Free Beacon report, “The ATF disclosed to lawmakers that it manages a database of 920,664,765 firearm purchase records, including both digital and hard copy versions of these transactions.”

At that time, Cloud investigated the ATF’s record collection and warned that the Biden administration could use the accumulated information to launch a gun registry. Cloud told the Free Beacon:

A federal firearm registry is explicitly banned by law. Yet, the Biden administration is again circumventing Congress and enabling the notably corrupt ATF to manage a database of nearly a billion gun transfer records…Under the president’s watch, the ATF has increased surveillance on American gun owners at an abhorrent level. The Biden administration continues to empower criminals and foreign nationals while threatening the rights of law-abiding Americans. It’s shameful and this administration should reconsider its continued attacks on American gun owners.

Cloud and Risch are now putting forward the “No REGISTRY Rights Act” to head off this monstrosity, noting that during Biden’s second year as president, his administration “finalized a rule requiring [Federal Firearm License holders] to retain records permanently, overturning decades of policy that allowed these records to be destroyed after 20 years.” This new rule, combined with the ATF’s “zero tolerance” policy — a policy which has forced the closure of many gun-related stores due to simple clerical errors — results in more records coming to ATF, records that could be used to grow the agency’s database.

This bill seeks to force the ATF to delete all digitized records and to destroy physical copies, then shuts down the agency from trying to get their grubby little paws on more.

Personally, I don’t feel like this bill should be necessary. The fact that federal law already prohibits a gun registry should be good enough.

However, what the ATF has done is create a backdoor registry by simply holding onto the records Congress says have to be collected. The bureau can argue that they’ve created nothing at all, they’re merely using the tools Congress provided.

It’s a BS argument, sure, but it’s one that I think would fly with a whole lot of people.

Undoubtedly, this measure will face some pretty fierce opposition. Those who lash out an privately made firearms because they can’t be traced will likely take a similar tack in attaching this bill. However, that’s where we need to point out that gun tracing hasn’t been shown to be key in solving like, well, any crimes. If it’s so important, why isn’t it actually working?

Plus, this doesn’t stop the collection of Form 4473s by gun stores. It just keeps the ATF from doing ATF things and violating the rights of law-abiding Americans by keeping track of who has what, even if it’s not the most efficient means possible of doing just that.

I sincerely hope the Republican Congress takes up this bill, passes it, and makes it happen for the good of all Americans.