Congress Demands Answers From ATF Over Backdoor Gun Registry
“We, the undersigned members of Congress, have waited patiently to know how many records ATF is currently maintaining in its illegal, digital, searchable gun registry, also known as the Out-of-Business Records Imaging System (OBRIS).”
Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) and other lawmakers have demanded answers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) regarding its backdoor gun registry.
“We, the undersigned members of Congress, have waited patiently to know how many records ATF is currently maintaining in its illegal, digital, searchable gun registry, also known as the Out-of-Business Records Imaging System (OBRIS),” wrote Cloud.
The lawmakers who joined Cloud:
- Nick Begich (R-AK)
- Andrew Biggs (R-AZ)
- Sheri Biggs (R-SC)
- Lauren Boebert (R-CO)
- Eric Burlison (R-MO)
- Benjamin Cline (R-VA)
- Andrew Clyde (R-GA)
- Scott Desjarlais (R-TN)
- Patrick Fallon (R-TX)
- Lance Gooden (R-TX)
- Wesley Hunt (R-TX)
- Dustin Johnson (R-SD)
- Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)
- Tracey Mann (R-KS)
- Richard McCormick (R-GA)
- John McGuire (R-VA)
- Mary Miller (R-IL)
- Felix Moore (R-AL)
- William Ogles (R-TN)
- Adrian Smith (R-NE)
- John Rose (R-TN)
- Chip Roy (R-TX)
- Peter Stauber (R-MN)
- David Taylor (R-OH)
- Jeffrey Van Drew (R-NJ)
- Matt Van Epps (R-TN)
The Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 and the Brady Act made it illegal for the ATF to have a centralized firearm registry:
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 [1] authority to inquire into the disposition of any firearm in the course of a criminal investigation.
Unfortunately, gun dealers have to hand over records to the government if they go out of business.
Gun Owners of America (GOA) discovered that in 2021, during the Biden administration, the ATF had over 54.7 million out-of-business records.
Lawmakers first reached out to the ATF on February 14, 2025.
“Back in November of 2021, a document leaked by Gun Owners of America revealed the ATF was ‘processing’ over 54.7 million Out-of-Business Records (OBR) per year,” continued Cloud. “This prompted our first congressional investigation, which uncovered the shocking reality that the ATF currently had in its possession 920,664,765 gun registration records—the vast majority of which were digitalized and searchable.”
Cloud is sort of correct when he wrote searchable.
J.D. Tuccille at Reason wrote that a 2022 GOA report revealed that the ATF stored the files in PDF and JPEG formats when they should have been in paper format.
The ATF swore that no one can search by name in the digital files. Except:
What is more, it appears the only reason ATF’s registry is not searchable by name is because ATF has merely disabled the ability for its software to search that particular record field. Of course, something that is so easily disabled could be easily re-enabled. In other words, this terrifying and legally prohibited power resides at ATF’s fingertips, and American gun owners are merely relying on the agency’s promise that it is not and will not abuse that power.
A few more problems:
What ATF does not mention, however, is that throughout its processes to digitize and consolidate records, the records are received from dealers and maintained by ATF in fully searchable formats (including by name). Moreover, ATF’s centralized database, even in its final form, is fully searchable by text for any of a variety of other factors (just not by name, supposedly).
The GOA also discovered that someone could search the registry “by weapon type, make, model, serial number, and caliber, among other functions.”
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Comments
I guess laws only apply to citizens and not the government.
Seems we had a spot of bother with the British about that some time in the past…
But we knew that back when the Brady Bill required “no problem found” purchase requests to be scrubbed, and it was discovered that they were never scrubbed.
Janet Reno whined, “But we have to keep backups of our computer systems!”
And the violation was NEVER CORRECTED.
Wasn’t it? I thought it had been corrected, after GOP congressmen kicked up a sufficient fuss about it.
The original determination was that the Brady Bill promised deletion after some unspecified reasonable short time, but since there was no actual NUMBER in the law, sod off you wanker. That’s what the DC Circuit Court told the NRA when they sued over this in 1999.
Since then Congress has taken some weak-sauce action. In 2004, they added a rider to their appropriations saying that no NICS system would receive funding unless it wiped “proceed” data within 24 hours.
Note that this is way weaker than a statute criminalizing the keeping of such records after 24 hours — after all, people in The Big Club don’t put other people in The Big Club behind bars. All the current law means is that you continue to get funding as long as you don’t get caught… and if you do get caught, you already got the money anyway, and all you have to do to get more money is promise to fix it, whether you do or not.
Let’s be clear. This massive collection effort began in 2021 and was a Biden initiated effort driven by regulatory changes mandating a permanent retention of records. Out of business records have apparently been collected for some time but the Biden administration was determinedly anti 2nd amendment. So many wrongs under that administration it’s difficult to comprehend.
Yes, but what about the records of approved requests? Those were supposed to be deleted after six months, and it was a huge deal when it turned out they were still in the backups. I thought that had been resolved, but Henry says it wasn’t, and that violation has been going on uninterrupted for 30 years.
Don’t know. I’’m certainly not going to defend Janet El Reno but that probably refers to DOJ/FBI wrongful conduct, not ATF abuses.
In my previous response, I forgot to include an admission that I was wrong — my memory was out of date. Corrective action (of whatever dubious effectiveness) WAS taken in 2004, after I lost track of the issue once NRA lost their lawsuit.
Of course, the whole thing is a big charade. We already know that BATF, in literal but casuistic disobedience to federal law, has assembled a national gun registry.
They argue, “But it’s not searchable by name!”
Really?
“See here? We grayed out that choice!”
Sure, comment out one line of code and voila — now you can!
I am completely reassured.
No, they might point out that they inherited this bad policy from the Biden administration. These things take time to clean up, especially when the wrong has been solidified into regulations. If anyone does not want more of this, I would suggest not electing more democrats.
We conservatives have to stop referring to all the ways Biden flat out broke blackletter federal law as “bad policies”… and to the ways Obama did the same as “botched stings.”
Congress is getting involved! Oh boy!
When can we expect a Sternly-Worded Letter – or dare we hope for a Very Sternly-Worded Letter?!?!
I think that WAS the Sternly Worded Letter.
Congress taking some tentative steps to hold Executive Branch to account is a good thing. Especially when it is GoP majority seeking answers, policy changes and/or compliance with applicable statutes from a GoP POTUS b/c there’s less ability to cast it as a partisan issue. The Trump admin needs to get a handle on the 2A concerns of the base instead of allowing bureaucratic establishment within the ATF/DoJ to continue stiff arming 2A concerns.
The problem is that neither Bondi nor Trump actually believe in the RKBA. They pay it lip service because they have to, but they don’t get it. They don’t see violations, because it doesn’t really matter to them.
How else can one explain Trump’s reaction to the Las Vegas massacre? “Ban first and worry about the constitution later.” “Disarm people first and worry about due process later.” Someone who genuinely cared about the RKBA wouldn’t need to have the problems with this pointed out to them.
And if Bondi really believed in the right to self defense she wouldn’t have got involved in the Zimmerman case.
Both of their reactions in the aftermath of the Pretti shooting also show that they don’t really understand it.
That’s perhaps a bit too harsh a framing. On the other hand I agree that your framing absolutely correctly accounts/describes the general lean of the Trump Admin. It’s not that Trump is anti 2A but that he ain’t ‘of’ the ‘firearms community’. Add to that his age and the general tenor of how the 2A is/was perceived by his cohort;; effectively a second class right as Justice Thomas consistently and correctly rails about. Bondi is IMO an unreliable weather vane, shifting her position to match the broader public mood to advance her career while her start point is one of ‘why does someone need a X type of firearm’ and not a principled one of defending the 2A as an equal Constitutional protection.
“Add to that his age and the general tenor of how the 2A is/was perceived by his cohort”
Before a Trump presidency was even on the radar, the man wrote a book in which he advocated banning guns. It was never a secret to us. The only remaining question was whether he had had a genuine conversion or whether he was just spouting the normal political bullshit. He settled that question in his first term with his love for red flags and his bump stock ban.
I have a neighbor who’s a world-class mechanical engineer, semi-retired and has worked all over the world for a few top companies. When one of his companies was applying for a federal contract that entailed background checks, he was taken into an office and shown a record of every gun he’d ever bought. When, where, how much he paid.
Think there’s no gun registry? Think again. The federal government does not follow its own laws, and never will.
“Think there’s no gun registry? Think again. ”
****
It’s seems odd., that when there is a “high profile” shooting, the Gov’t can say where and when the firearm was purchased but…..but …..no National Registry.
The registry comes into play only at point of consumer sale.
Prior to sale, there are manufacturer lot records and shipping manifests to distributors and dealers, and ZERO statutory prohibitions on 100% government access to all of them. Given a serial number, BATF can always tell you what shop sold it, and always could,
The system is set up to allow a trace by serial number, but not to accumulate records by the name of the buyer. That’s illegal, but the federal government couldn’t care less about obeying its own laws.
I think it’s often less a matter of “can’t” and more a matter of “don’t.” Because, when it comes right down to it, how the perpetrator got the gun is very seldom germane to the case and almost never provides evidence that solves it. Unless, of course, you’re talking about the crime of getting a firearm to a prohibited person. Even then, few of the actual transfers are through legitimate dealers and unable to be tracked, except (possibly) to find the original purchaser.
The whole serial number mania is a boondoggle, as is the “ghost gun” panic that uses that lie as an excuse.
For a serial number to solve a crime requires a fatally improbable chain of events:
1. The gun is recovered at the scene but the perp isn’t.
2. The chain of possession from most recent dealer sale is not broken by theft, loss, or private sale by a seller now deceased or who kept no records.
Just look at the statistics on what percentage of crimes are solved by the serial number. Oh wait — you can’t, because none are published. Guess why.
But we do have data divulged via lawsuits which tells the story:
“In a 2001 lawsuit, the Pennsylvania state police could not identify any crimes solved by their registration system from 1901 to 2001” (note — an actual registration system, not just a weak-sauce serial number chain).
“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.'”
Indeed, we know from Canada’s experience with their criMe fiGHting National Gun Registry (which was budgeted in 1995 to cost $85 million and ended up costing $2 BILLION, plus $200 million annually just to operate) solved ZERO crimes, EXCEPT the crime of “failure to register,” a brand-new paper crime created solely by the very existence of the otherwise-useless registry.
(The Canadian Cancer Society was quite butthurt that Canada spent $200 million annually to register guns, but only $33 million to cure cancer. )
Heh, you’re repeating back what I’ve said many times. 🙂 (Don’t worry; I’m not saying you Bidened it from me.)
Unless you’ve got an inkling some kind of gun running is taking place, tracking the serial number of a gun is rather pointless.
No, I agree. I guess the main point I wanted to make is that — despite the constant shrieking fedguv sound and fury about unserialized 3D printed guns — there is no rational criminological case to be made for the mandatory serializing of guns at all. It is nothing more than a stupid tradition, like the tonsillectomies and (non-religious) circumcisions of the ’40s and ’50s.
As far as I know, no crime has ever been solved by tracing the weapon.
“The federal government does not follow its own laws, and never will.”
The Privacy Act of 1974 was my first clue that it was all a big charade. Suddenly our Social Security numbers were SECURE!
Were they? Ever actually read the Act? It didn’t prohibit or criminalize squat. The only thing it did do was permit you standing in a private cause of action against a company that violated it, In other words, YOU got to sue THEM using YOUR money.
And it didn’t apply to the government at all.
There’s your Rule of Law writ large.
Why do we even have an ATF?
Because when Reagan tried to disband it, no other federal law enforcement agency would accept the personnel and resources – which tells you how bad it was back then. There is no evidence that it has improved…
1934 Firearms Act.
That was supposed to be an uptick.
Because the government wanted to ban guns, and the only constitutional power they could bring to bear was the taxation power. Note that carefully. That is why BATF was originally a Treasury bureau — the old Alcohol Taxation Bureau, who then got handed firearms and tobacco because (at least on paper) it was essentially the same job.
Then our great “conservative” president Bush decided to promote BATF into an actual law enforcement agency instead of a taxation agency, because the charade had gone on long enough to be as safely ignored de jure as it had always been de facto.
In addition, the Biden administration’s infamous “zero tolerance” policy was deliberately aimed at forcing dealers out of business, so that the ATF could get its paws on their records. This is completely illegal and intolerable.
The Congress wouldn’t have to “wait so patiently” if they convene the Appropriations Committee to debate cutting the ATF budget by 50%
Out-of-Business Records Imaging System (OBRIS)
Shouldn’t that be “OOBRIS”? Say it out loud and you’ll see what I mean.
Unfortunately, gun dealers have to hand over records to the government if they go out of business.
Why no reference to the law that makes this so? Why is it a “have to”? On whose authority? I think that’s a big issue in this fight. Why isn’t that being debated?
The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), as codified in 18 U.S.C. § 923(g) (records disposition is in 923(g)(1)(A)). Another of those lazy-ass congressional laws that say, “We’ll let the bureaucrats decide what the law really is.”
27 CFR § 478.127 requires purchase records to be transferred to ATF’s Out-of-Business Records Center (“registry”) upon dissolution of the business.
Prior to 2022, the requirement was for the dealer to retain 20 years of records. Biden’s gang (of course) changed that to indefinitely, to speed up the illegal registry.
put um on a hillary server
The existence of the required technology for the totalitarian surveillance state guarantees that it will happen. The reason/excuse will be the increasing incidence and severity of wicked behavior.
A great portion of which (asthe MSM will all be careful not to notice) is attributable to the totalitarian surveillance state itself.
Or to its unofficial organs: media, NGOs, and Antifa.