The Trump administration will soon release a rule dealing with ATF’s illegal registry. It will change the Biden-era requirement that gun dealers permanently keep all firearm transaction records.
Ending the permanent retention of these records is could be a huge step in the right direction, since the Biden ATF’s entire plan was to use these forms to continue building their illegal gun registry.
So how does GOA know this?
Well in case you missed our video on it, the Trump administration’s proposed new director of the ATF, Robert Cekada, answered questions from Senators following his hearing.
These “Questions for the Record” or QFRs, are questions that could not be asked during hearings because of time constraints. Nominees submit their answers creating a via a public legal record that is published before their confirmation vote.
These answers can be enlightening where a nominee stands on particularly complex issues.
Specifically, Senator Ted Cruz asked about ATF’s 920 million-record illegal registry and how many documents they’ve added in the 4-year gap since the ATF last updated those figures.
In his response, Deputy Director Cekada said
“Consistent with the President’s Executive Order on the Second Amendment, ATF is also undertaking a review of how long firearm transaction records should be maintained.”
In another question from Senator Cruz, he asks what’s the point in maintaining infinite or even more than 10 years of records when the average national time to crime is less than 10 years, and there are few traces that use records older than 20 years.
In Cekada’s response to this question, he says:
“Further, in accordance with the President’s Executive Order, Protecting Second Amendment Rights, ATF has been working with the Department to conduct a thorough review of existing regulations to assess whether they infringe on Second Amendment rights. As part of this review, we are examining the law enforcement value of older firearm transaction records. The results of that review should be forthcoming shortly.” “
Thanks to these public records, we KNOW the ATF is looking into ending the Biden era Rule that made all gun transaction records or ATF Form 4473s into permanent records. And this is “coming soon.”
Ending the Biden era rule is good news. Permanent record retention was a crucial step in the anti-gun lobby’s plan to build a complete registry of all guns and gun owners in the United States to be used eventually for confiscation.
But before the permanent record retention rule, Federal Firearms Licensees only needed to keep their records for 20 years; afterwards they could destroy them.
So right now, the ATF and FFLs nationwide have every single dealer sale record since 2002. That’s a pretty significant number of records, which the ATF is attempting to turn into a registry as you read this article.
There is no public information outside of Cekada’s responses to Senator Cruz about what the rule will look like. But, in light of this information, the GOA’s Legal and Federal Affairs teams have put together a proposal to the DOJ, ATF, and the Trump administration on what a “No Compromise” rule would look like.
And don’t worry, we’re still lobbying Congress to delete the registry with Rep. Michael Cloud’s No REGISTRY Rights Act and some appropriations language that Rep. Andrew Clyde has been introducing the last couple of years.
And of course, we’re continuing our lawsuit against the Biden-era rule that made these records permanent. But there’s a path here for President Trump to really restore our Second Amendment rights and dismantle this registry.
Ideally, ATF’s record retention period should be zero years.
Hellbound and Down 