BATFE Now Has Data on Over One Billion Firearms Transactions but They Are Totally Not Building a National Gun Registry – Opinion

Over the years, gun owners had feared that they would have to register their guns with the federal government. This was feared because a lawless government could use such a registry, as one that allowed guns to be sold in Mexico to Mexican drug cartels to increase the death toll from illegal weapons purchases. It also created a basis for regulation for weapons confiscation. It is not new. The 1986 Firearms Owners Protection Act of Firearms was passed to stop blatant abuses of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The law provides information about firearms records custody.

18 U.S. Code § 926 – Rules and regulations

No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established. Nothing in this section expands or restricts the Secretary’s  authority to inquire into the disposition of any firearm in the course of a criminal investigation.

The FBI’s background check system has a similar safeguard; at 88 days, all weapons background checks are purged from the system.

It seems, though, that the ATF has found a way to create a database containing ownership information of nearly 1 billion, yes, that is with a “b,” weapons.

A coalition of Republican lawmakers is investigating the Biden administration over its stockpiling of nearly one billion records detailing Americans’ firearm purchases, according to a copy of the investigation that accuses the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) of planning to “sweep up records of every gun sale in America.”

Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, is leading the probe and has 35 colleagues backing him. This comes just a few days after a Washington Free Beacon report detailing how the ATF maintains a database of 920,664,765 firearm purchase records—far more than has previously been publicly disclosed. This huge number of records is most likely digitized and stored in an easily searchable database. It has raised concerns that the Biden administration may be violating federal laws which prohibit the government maintaining a national firearm registry.

The lawmakers now want the ATF to disclose how the database is being used. According to the ATF, the database is used primarily for criminal tracking. The ATF also says, however, that the firearm database is often not useful in helping to prosecute gun crimes, fueling concerns the Biden administration’s goal is to track legal gun owners. The lawmakers say their fears are compounded by the administration’s bid to overhaul current gun laws to ensure the records of every licensed firearm dealer in the country ultimately make their way into the federal government’s hands.

Cloud and his colleagues say this change to the law—which would mandate that gun stores keep their records in perpetuity instead of 20 years, as is currently permitted—constitutes a massive federal overreach.

What is the secret to this? This is done by the ATF claiming ownership of all sales records that are kept by any Federal Firearms License holder in the country. When you sell your business, or leave it altogether, all sales records are transferred to the ATF. Current law allows records to be destroyed after 20 years. However, records that are less than 20-years old can be collected, digitized, and placed in an searchable database by the ATF.

According to the federal government, this data collection is non-threatening for gun owners since Joey SoftServe never thought about weapon confiscation. The first claim, however, is not true. Biden (or rather, the band of criminals who govern the country under his command) will say whatever they like. The claim about using the database to solve crimes sounds great to a nation whose favorite television shows include the “CSI” franchise. In reality, however, the fantasy is used by gun control fetishists as spank bank material.

In a 2001 lawsuit, the Pennsylvania state police could not identify any crimes solved by their registration system from 1901 to 2001; however they did claim that it had “assisted” in a total of four cases, for which they could provide no details.

In a 2013 deposition for District of Columbia, v. Heller II, the plaintiffs recorded that the Washington, D.C. police chief could not “recall any specific instance where registration records were used to determine who committed a crime, except for possession offenses.”

During testimony before the Hawaii State Senate in 2000, Honolulu’s police chief stated that he couldn’t find any crimes that had been solved due to registration and licensing. According to the chief, his officers spent about 50,000 hours annually registering and licensing guns. These are hours that could have been used to perform traditional and proven law enforcement actions.

New York City and Maryland spent many millions on assembling a computer database of every new gun sold over the past fifteen years. They even recorded the ballistic fingerprints for each gun. But even these states, which strongly favor gun control, eventually abolished their systems because they never solved a single crime.

It is illegal for the federal government, when there is no law prohibiting it from having a registry of firearms, to maintain a database that contains nearly one million firearms. The ATF cannot claim any ownership rights to FFL business records, unless the subpoena is valid. They have only unlegitimate motives.

We’ve seen no indication that the current Congress has any interest in safeguarding our Constitutional rights; in fact, all evidence points in the exact opposite direction. We must ensure that gun rights are protected if the GOP wins control of the House in 2022. (See North Carolina Supreme Court delivers a massive blow to GOP redistricting hopes).