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There are federal laws that prohibit the US government from keeping records of firearms purchases by private citizens. Regular gun registration is not permitted – at least at the federal level. So, how is it that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, more commonly known as the ATF, has access to a database of 1.4 billion pages of records from firearms dealers that have gone out of business?
This was a Just the News exclusive, published on Sept. 29. “No one in their right mind can look at ATF's digital, searchable 1.4 billion record database of firearm transactions and tell me that isn't a gun registry,” said Aidan Johnston, the federal affairs director for Gun Owners of America. “Several federal laws prohibit gun registration, so it’s truly shocking to see how ATF has disregarded the will of Congress here.”
Since the political right is about individual liberty, family values, and free market economics and the political left is all about all-powerful government, central planning, and social engineering, it is hardly surprising that the federal government is mostly staffed by left-wing ideologues. This is perhaps no more evident than within the Department of Justice – clearly demonstrated by the FBI’s relentless, years-long pursuit of President Donald Trump, beginning in 2016.
Gun Registration Means Gun Restriction
The ATF, a Justice Department agency, has always been, ironically, a staunchly anti-Second Amendment entity. It perhaps shouldn’t come as a shock, then, to learn that, regardless of federal laws prohibiting federal gun registration, the agency has access to a database that contains details of American civilians who have purchased firearms – complete with the serial numbers of the guns they bought, names, addresses, and in some cases Social Security numbers.
Back in 2021, this digital database comprised some 920 million records. Today, it holds about 1.4 billion pages of records and images. Rep. Michael Cloud, a Texas Republican, sent a letter to President Donald Trump and VP JD Vance on Sept. 29, urging him to take action on the matter.
Several Republican lawmakers have demanded the administration end the ATF gun registration practice, which they say is illegal.
The ATF says the database is essential to tracing firearms that are used in criminal activity. The problem with that is that the right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment. Gun registration, then, effectively implies that all American gun owners are potential criminals. Multiple studies have shown Americans who possess concealed carry permits are the least likely to commit violent crimes. The logical extension of those findings is that law-abiding gun owners do not warrant federal government surveillance. Violent criminals, in most cases, do not walk into a gun store, pass the NICS background check, and walk out with their gun. Has it happened? Yes, but so rarely that it does not justify the ATF’s gun registration scheme.
Freedom Prevention, Not Crime Prevention
The thing is, there is little evidence that gun registration prevents violent crime. How could it? Sure, you may be able to trace a weapon that has been used in the commission of a crime, but what does that really matter? To use an old adage, you are closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. And sophisticated criminal entities do not procure their firearms via over-the-counter purchases from gun stores – except, notably, when the ATF itself let straw buyers walk guns to Mexican cartels under the Obama administration (Operation Fast and Furious).
America is one of the few countries that constitutionally protects citizens’ rights to own and carry firearms. Maybe all those that do not allow that are afraid that their citizens distrust the political leaders so much that they would at least entertain the thought of overthrowing them. The exceptionalism of America is that it is a country built upon the armed overthrow of an oppressive foreign power. That is exactly why there are laws prohibiting the federal government from keeping records of who is buying guns.
