ATF’s Hidden Gun Registry: How a ‘Tracing System’ Became a Billion-Record Database - Ammoland.com

Washington, D.C. — A new report from Reason confirms what AmmoLand has been warning American gun owners about for years: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has quietly built what amounts to a backdoor gun registry — in violation of federal law.

On February 3, Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) and 26 colleagues demanded answers from ATF about the scale and legality of this database after being stonewalled for more than a year. The concern? A digital trove of hundreds of millions — possibly over a billion — firearm transaction records that the agency has digitized from former dealer files.

The Law Forbid a National Registry — and the ATF Built One Anyway

Federal law has banned the creation of a national firearms registry since 1986 under the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act. It states clearly that “no…system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions may be established.”

Yet the ATF, using a Biden-era rule that requires FFLs to retain transaction records indefinitely, has been digitizing Form 4473s — the very forms that list your name, address, and what firearm you bought — and storing them at its National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, WV. In 2021 alone, ATF admitted processing more than 54 million out-of-business dealer records.

Click the link to read the whole article:  ATF’s Hidden Gun Registry