The Biden administration and ATF have nearly one billion records on private firearms purchases by law-abiding citizens.
The revelation, first reported by Ammoland.com, came in response to an inquiry last fall by 51 congressional Republicans asking for further details as to how the ATF procures and stockpiles gun records. (RELATED: New Survey Reveals Where Americans Stand on Guns)
In response to the lawmakers, ATF Assistant Director Daniel L. Board explained in detail how when a license gun store goes out of business, its records documenting all gun transactions become ATF property.
The practice has drawn condemnation from gun rights organizations and Second Amendment champions in Congress, who fear that the information will be used to produce to an illegal gun ownership database. (RELATED: As Gun Sales Soared, the Number of Violent Crimes Committed With Guns Plummeted)
Adding to their fears is today's news that the quantity of firearm purchase records is far larger than the public — or Congress — was aware of.
As Ammoland.com reports:
AmmoLand News was first to report that the ATF was digitally scanning firearms transaction records, like your personal 4473. From forms that the Bureau has received from gun retailers that have given up their federal firearms license. The ATF has been using scanners equipped with optical character recognition technology (OCR) to digitize the records. Although the ATF claims not to have the ability to search for specific character strings, the fact they are using OCR means that it would only take mere minutes to enable the ability to search the documents.
Remember the Federal 4473 form that you complete when you purchase a gun at a retail gun shop or big-box retailer like Walmart includes such personal data as your full name, address, phone numbers, date of birth, social security number, race, sex, and even your weight. Your certification that you are not on drugs or alcohol. [Hello Hunter Biden] As well as all the unique identifying information of the firearm you are buying or transferring at the time you complete the form including the manufacture, make, model, caliber, and serial number.
But this is NOT a gun registry… In the letter, ATF assures us they do “not capture and store certain key information, such as firearms purchaser information, in an automated file” and “ATF is confident that it does not violate any laws.”
Last November, Gun Owners of America (GOA) received a leak showing that the ATF added 54 million records in a year's period to the out-of-business records held by the massive government bureaucracy. Fox News' Tucker Carlson even picked up the report at that time. By law, the Firearms Protection Act bans the ATF from creating a registry of guns, gun owners, or gun sales. Causing some Congress members to be concerned that the ATF was building a gun registry in violation of long-standing federal law. That concern drove Texas (R) Rep. Cloud and the others to draft a letter to the agency asking tough questions about the ATF's out-of-business record-keeping practices.
Even though the ATF is prohibited from creating a gun registry, it's not hard for gun rights supporters to image the agency using its records to do just that. (RELATED: Second Amendment Groups Prepare for Renewed Gun Control Push)
Who did not see this coming? Welcome to Amerika, USSA
Hailing from Commiefornika.
The backdoor efforts by ATF to compile transactions on guns is worrying – it isn’t that it is a mere efforts to skirt laws meant to protect Americans’ privacy and rights, but a precursor to registration and confiscation efforts…