Gun Owners Foundation Wants Gag Order Lifted Over Alleged ATF Gun Purchase Monitoring Effort

Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation rocked the boat last week when it unveiled information it obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request about how the ATF spies on gun forums and gun groups on social media. I viewed that as an absolute bombshell and something that was beyond the pale. It was grounds enough for the ATF to be abolished in my book.

But it seems there was another FOIA request they can’t talk about.

🚨UPDATE🚨

GOA & GOF have been GAGGED from printing the news (uncovered in a FOIA) for 18 months.

Despite a recent ruling by the D.C. Circuit prohibiting such gag orders, Biden holdovers in @TheJusticeDept are asking the court to extend this First Amendment violation. pic.twitter.com/sp2FrKNmQo

— Gun Owners Foundation (@GunFoundation) March 12, 2025

The gag order is interesting, to say the least, especially considering what the FOIA request covered.

From the motion:

This case concerns a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request Plaintiffs submitted nearly four years ago to Defendant Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“ATF” or “Defendant”), seeking records about a secret government surveillance program which unlawfully and unconstitutionally monitors and records the firearm purchases of American citizens who are perfectly eligible to purchase and possess firearms.  As part of its document production in this case, Defendant negligently left certain information unredacted, and then demanded Plaintiffs claw back (return) the information that had been voluntarily transmitted to them. 

[Emphasis added]

They were seeking records pertaining to what?

Now, I get some of it wasn’t redacted as it was apparently supposed to be, but considering what the FOIA covered, I’m skeptical it was anything but intentional. Put some information in that should be redacted, then pretend that information should cause the information to be sat on indefinitely.

But what’s troubling me here isn’t just the gag order itself, but the fact that there were apparently some records about a secret government surveillance program monitoring lawful gun purchases.

I’ve always known that the Form 4473 was, in essence, a de facto gun registry, even if such registries are explicitly illegal under federal law. That’s part of why universal background checks are so popular with anti-gunners. If there’s paperwork on every gun sale, then in time, the authorities will know where every gun is one way or another.

Yet this seems to go well beyond that.

This isn’t paperwork sitting at your local gun store for a handful of years, possibly being destroyed because the store stays in business long enough to have old records it can lawfully dispose of.

No, this sounds like an intentional effort to monitor what guns we’re buying and from where.

GOF, which is the basically the educational arm of GOA, makes the case that the gag order is unconstitutional and that the judge overstepped his authority by issuing the order. That’s especially true since the information that was apparently supposed to be redacted is not just not a matter of national security, but only appears sporadically in a relatively small portion of the 115 pages of total material obtained.

Again, 115 pages of material on a surveillance program that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Earlier today, I said something to the effect of Attorney General Pam Bondi and acting ATF Director Kash Patel needing to step in and rein in the ATF. I feel that even more strongly now.

It’s also clear that the ATF is a rogue agency that shouldn’t even exist. Every time I think I’ve found the limits of how much they suck, they find a way to show me they suck even worse.