Republicans in Congress have presented a bill that would annihilate the federal government’s database of firearms acquisitions and keep the Biden administration from collecting data on weapon sales from suppliers that go out of business.
The legislation proposed is called the”No Retaining Every Gun In a System That Restricts Your Rights Act” and also was introduced by Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX), who said the bill is intended to prevent the federal government from developing a firearms registry.
Cloud submitted the bill in feedback to reports that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives retains ownership of virtually 1 billion documents outlining weapon purchases by American citizens. ATF accumulated these details under an obscure provision of federal law that requires licensed firearms or ammunition dealers to submit records to the DoJ when their company ceases to do business.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 calls for stores that fold to hand over their documents of weapon purchases for the previous 20 years to the federal government, though the Biden management has actually sought to eliminate the 20-year constraint to collect records in perpetuity. Second Amendment advocates say this would be the initial step toward the development of a nationwide gun registry, which might be abused by the federal government to disrupt Americans’ Constitutional right to bear arms.
“The stakes have never been higher for our Second Amendment rights. We currently have an anti-gun president and ATF collecting firearm records for a national registry with the intent of pushing more firearm restrictions, and potentially even eventual confiscation,” said Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America.
“Representative Cloud’s legislation is a major step in the right direction to defend our rights and dissolve this unconstitutional registry — every elected official who supports our Second Amendment should get behind it,” he added in a statement.
If Cloud’s bill becomes law, the ATF would certainly be required to “destroy all firearm transaction records” within 90 days. Additionally, sections of government code requiring out-of-business gun dealerships to pass on their documents would immediately be rescinded. The ATF director would be required to reveal the quantity of records destroyed to Congress.
“Americans have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms — to protect themselves and their families,” Cloud said in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon, which first reported his bill.
“This past year we’ve seen the Biden administration increase scrutiny on law-abiding Americans while turning a blind eye to criminals and corruption. The Biden administration’s actions have shown their intent to restrict the rights of gun owners across our nation and Congress must oppose them with full force. My bill would delete and dismantle ATF’s record keeping, restore privacy for law-abiding American gun owners, and prevent a federal firearms registry from being created.”
Last month, ATF divulged to legislators that the firm has 920,664,765 records of weapons sales in a database it has actually been creating as well as preserving since 2006. The records consist of both electronic as well as hard copy records, but the huge bulk of those documents remains in a digitized style, ATF claimed.
“The sole purpose of these systems is to trace firearms used in crimes, which is a valuable crime gun intelligence tool used in thousands of investigations,” ATF said in action to a query on the database from Cloud as well as other Republican legislators.
ATF said it was “confident” that the data source “does not violate any laws”
H/T The Blaze
