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The Biden administration, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, has reportedly illegally compiled records of nearly one billion firearms sales in a searchable, digital database.
Some Second Amendment supporters claim that this could be a backdoor registry that, in the end, may lead to an outright gun ban or even confiscation.
Along those lines, a group of GOP lawmakers have launched an investigation into the transaction trove that could be used by the government to target legal gun owners.
Gun rights advocate John Lott, the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and former Justice Department advisor, claims in a Real Clear Politics commentary, headlined “Democrats Pushing Gun Registry as Precursor to Gun Ban,” that the ATF has swept up about 54 million of such records last year alone.
Federal law explicitly prohibits the creation of a federal firearm registry, but the Biden administration is making one anyway…This massive data collection effort encompasses information on all guns sold by licensed gun dealers, and on all legal gun transfers in states with so-called universal background checks. So, federal officials will have the name of everyone who legally obtained a gun. Now, President Biden wants to make universal background checks nationwide so he can have an even more complete registration list…
“[F]federal law has always required that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System erase background check information within 24 hours of its completion,” Lott recalled.
While violent crime is surging across the U.S. (mostly committed by recidivists and often enabled by Soros-backed prosecutors), there is no apparent crime wave among law-abiding gun owners who adhere to the rules.
Further from Lott:
Gun control activists push for registration as a way to solve crime. In theory, if criminals leave registered guns at a crime scene, they can then be traced back to the perpetrator. But in real life, a gun is usually left at the scene of a crime only when the gunman has been seriously injured or killed. Also, guns used in crimes are rarely registered. In the exceedingly unusual instances that they are, they aren’t registered to the person who committed the crime. However, with both the criminal and weapon present at the scene, police can solve these crimes even without registration.
Lott suggested that there are sparse instances where a state-level, computerized registry funded with a lot of taxpayer money led to cops solving a crime.
“Why do Democrats keep pushing a policy that costs so much and has no crime-reducing benefits? With so many Democrat voters supporting complete gun bans, many Republicans and Democrats believe that the registry is designed to pave the way for a ban on guns,” Lott concluded.
U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) is leading a group of 30-plus House lawmakers who are probing the ATF initiative, which the agency claims is only set up to trace firearms used in crimes.
I am continuing to lead the investigation as to why ATF has accumulated nearly a billion gun records when a federal firearm registry is explicitly banned by law.
Law-abiding American gun owners are rightfully concerned, and it's up to Congress to investigate further. https://t.co/mQ7BjmUX2d
— Congressman Michael Cloud (@RepCloudTX) February 3, 2022
“[T]he Biden Administration is again circumventing Congress and enabling the notably corrupt ATF to manage a database of nearly a billion gun transfer records,” Cloud asserted, according to The Texan. “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.”
The ATF is also pushing a regulation that would require gun stores to maintain their records permanently rather with a 20-year cutoff even though the agency has apparently conceded that the database “is often not useful in helping to prosecute gun crime.”
The ATF's backdoor attempt at creating a federal firearm registry cannot be allowed to continue. A firearm registry is prohibited by law, would infringe on the privacy rights, and is the first step towards gun confiscation.
Proud to join @RepCloudTX to defend the 2nd Amendment. https://t.co/HbE4lNYSGS
— Matt Rosendale (@RepRosendale) February 3, 2022
“As part of the investigation, the lawmakers are demanding the ATF explicitly detail what percentage of firearm traces were conducted using records that are 20 years or older. They suspect it is a very small number, indicating that the Biden administration’s bid to take possession of older records is primarily about obtaining information on gun owners,” The Washington Free Beacon explained.
The IRS targeted conservatives.
The FBI spied on parents at school board meetings.
The DOJ created a “domestic terrorism” unit to snoop on citizens.
And now the ATF wants a permanent gun registry of your firearm purchases.
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) February 1, 2022
Citing polling data, Lott insisted that “Two-thirds of Republicans believe the policy will lead to gun confiscation, and even 40% of Democrats believe the same. Confiscating legally owned firearms, it seems, is not merely a right-wing conspiracy theory.”
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Robert Jonathan is a staff writer for BizPac Review. He is a longtime writer/editor for news aggregation websites and has also developed content in the legal and financial publishing sectors as well as for online education. He earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Connecticut School of Law, “a law school the basketball teams can be proud of.”
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