ATF Never Let a Silly Thing Like Law Slow Their Power Grabs
ATF’s Push to Digitize a BILLION Private Records: 1 Step Closer to a National Gun Registry
The federal government says it’s not building an illegal National gun registry—but if it looks like one, operates like one, and can be searched like one, then what is it really?
That’s the question at the heart of a heated debate about the ATF’s quiet move to digitize Form 4473 records from out-of-business gun shops. These are the forms that list your name, address, and firearm info when you buy a gun through an FFL (Federal Firearms Licensee). Normally, dealers keep these records on-site for 20 years, then they can destroy them. But now, the ATF wants them forever—and in digital format.
According to a paper by Del Schlangen at the Firearms Research Center, the ATF already has close to a billion records in its system. That’s not a typo—a billion. Many of those came from gun stores that went out of business and were forced to send in their paper files. Now, the ATF scans them and stores them digitally in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
Gun owners and lawmakers are calling this what it looks like: a de facto gun registry.
Why It Matters
Under the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, the federal government is prohibited from creating any kind of national gun registry. But if the ATF is storing digitized records forever—records that can be searched by serial number and traced back to you—then…
What do they do to those people wearing government costumes to get them to believe they’re doing the right thing?