Feds pull trigger, collect records on 54 million U.S. gun owners

By Bob Unruh

Reconnaissance Marine assigned to the All Domain Reconnaissance Detachment, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, sights in with an M40A6 sniper rifle during a live-fire sniper range at the Northern Range Complex, Kuwait, Oct. 10, 2021. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Israel Chincio)

Joe Biden’s administration in Washington is collecting records on millions of gun owners across America, raising concern the anti-gun sentiment in the ranks of his appointees will deal a blow to the Second Amendment.

That Biden is anti-gun is supported by the evidence of his actions, which haven’t always followed the truth.

The Hill reported Biden was hit with a “fact-check” from the Washington Post recently when he repeated “a false claim … that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars citizens from owning cannons.”

Biden claimed that the Constitution limits “the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon…”

David Kopel, of the Independence Institute, said that simply “everything in that statement is wrong.”

Further, the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action said Biden, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, revealed their “contempt” for the Second Amendment by supporting New York’s law that is being challenged in the Supreme Court.

That requires people to prove they have a need to carry a weapon before being allowed to do so.

Biden’s appointees, in fact, have rejected what the Supreme Court already ruled in the Heller case in 2008, that the Constitution does protect an individual’s right.

Now, the Free Beacon reports that it has seen documents showing the Biden administration has gotten more than 54 million gun-owner records already this year.

The report explained the administration “is poised to drastically alter gun regulations to ensure that information on Americans who own firearms ultimately ends up in the federal governments hands.”

Those details are from documents obtained from the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The report said, “The ATF in fiscal year 2021 processed 54.7 million out-of-business records, according to an internal ATF document obtained by the Gun Owners of America, a firearms advocacy group, and provided exclusively to the Free Beacon. When a licensed gun store goes out of business, its private records detailing gun transactions become ATF property and are stored at a federal site in West Virginia. This practice allows the federal government to stockpile scores of gun records and has drawn outrage from gun advocacy groups that say the government is using this information to create a national database of gun owners—which has long been prohibited under U.S. law.”

Second Amendment supporters charged in the report that it appears “the Biden administration is trying to keep track of all Americans who own firearms, in violation of federal statutes.”

Biden’s leftists also are trying to change the law to allow them to keep gun records permanently, because current law allows gun shops to destroy them after 20 years, the report said.

“As if the addition of over 50 million records to an ATF gun registry wasn’t unconstitutional or illegal enough, the Biden administration’s misuse of ‘out-of-business’ records doesn’t end there,” Aidan Johnston, the Gun Owners of America’s director of federal affairs, told the Free Beacon. “Instead of maintaining the right of [licensed firearm dealers] to destroy Firearm Transaction Records after 20 years, buried within Biden’s proposed regulations is a provision that would mean every single Firearm Transaction Record going forward would eventually be sent to ATF’s registry in West Virginia.”

The report explained an ATF official declined to comment on agency records, but said it’s not a banned “federal gun registry” for the AFT to obtain millions of “out of business records.”

It is the Gun Control Act of 1968 that instructs that licensed firearm dealers that go out of business provide the ATF with their records.

The issue of records has come up as Biden is working to propose who firearms restrictions including a ban on pistol braces, impose who regulations for background checks, and more.

“The Biden administration has forced ATF to undertake the rule-making process in record time—resulting in faulty argumentation and demonstrating that neither ATF nor Biden’s anti-gun appointees know anything about the firearms and accessories they seek to regulate,” said Johnston.

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Bob Unruh

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Read more of Bob Unruh's articles here.


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