Republicans introduce bill to require ATF to delete records of gun sales

House Republicans have introduced a bill that would require the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to eliminate any firearms transactions maintained in their records.

The No Retaining Every Gun In a System That Restricts Your (REGISTRY) Rights Act, authored by Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, would order the ATF to delete all existing firearm transaction records and mandate licensed federal gun sellers to destroy their firearm transaction records if they go out of business.

Although the 1986 Firearm Owners’ Protection Act bans the federal government from creating a federal firearms registry, the ATF has retained 1 billion firearm transaction records from FFLs (Federal Firearms License) that went out of business, the lawmakers said this week.

“The Second Amendment is clear, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. There is no reason for law-abiding American gun owners to be subjected to excessive scrutiny on the firearms they own by the federal government,” Mr. Cloud said in a statement.

“My bill would dismantle ATF’s record-keeping, restore privacy for American gun owners, and reverse the groundwork laid in the creation of a federal firearms registry,” he said.

Mr. Cloud and 51 other Republicans sent a letter to ATF Acting Director Marvin G. Richardson last November. They asked how many records the bureau’s Out-of-Business Records Center has in total, and how many of those records were processed into a digitalized format.

In January, the ATF disclosed to the GOP lawmakers that it maintains a database of nearly one billion firearm transaction records.

However, in a statement to The Washington Times, the ATF denied the agency keeps a federal gun registry.

“ATF does not maintain a federal gun registry for firearms that fall under the Gun Control Act, and none of the records ATF maintains relating to those firearms may be used to create such a registry,” an ATF spokeswoman April Langwell said.

Ms. Langwell said federal law requires FFLs to maintain the out-of-business records “regarding firearm transfers to both other FFLs and to individuals who are not licensed, and to send these records to ATF when they go out of business.”

She said the law also requires the ATF to maintain these “out-of-business records” to facilitate the tracing of firearms that law enforcement agencies recover in criminal investigations, and that trace requests may only be submitted by law enforcement agencies “conducting a bona fide criminal investigation.”

According to Ms. Langwell, ATF’s National Tracing Center is responsible for processing and maintaining out-of-business records that FFLs submit, and currently processes an average of 5.5 million of these records each month.

The records are indexed by an FFL to facilitate the processing of law enforcement trace requests, but are not searchable by individual purchaser information.

The ATF would not comment on the proposed legislation, but Republicans warn the Biden administration is preparing new rulemaking to require FFLs to preserve all firearm transaction records and that would “lay the groundwork for a national firearms registry.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican and co-chair of the Second Amendment caucus, stated, “Governments should not have a list, in any country, of the people who possess the firearms meant to keep those very governments in check. Gun registries are precursors to gun confiscation and should not exist.”