National Gun Registry may be around the corner

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WASHINGTON — An internal document from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) showed alarming data suggesting a back-door national gun registry may be underway.

The document showed that the ATF processed nearly 55 million out-of-business records in Fiscal Year 2021. When the ATF processes such closures of licensed gun stores, the records pertaining to gun transactions fall into the ATF’s hands, according to a Washington Free Beacon report.

Aidan Johnston, the director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, 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. Instead of maintaining the right of [licensed firearm dealers] to destroy Firearm Transaction Records after 20 years, buried within (President Joe) 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 Machine Gun Nest (MGN) provided further details regarding changes to Form 4473 made by the ATF in 2020 which “essentially ties a name to the firearm as it was transferred to an individual from a licensed dealer, sometimes referred to as an FFL.”

The personal information, from names to driver’s license number to more, along with the type of firearm purchased by an individual purchaser is now known by the ATF for those recently obtained records because of the Form 4473 changes.

“For those familiar with ATF paperwork, a pattern might be forming,” the MGN states. “We had our first taste of it back in November of 2020. Of course, the hyperbolic media was more focused at the time on the fact that the ATF added a gender box for “non-binary” but completely ignored the fact that all the pertinent information had been consolidated to the first page of the form.”

“For those unfamiliar, prior to November of 2020, page one of the 4473 form asked for personal information but no information on the firearm associated. Prior to 2020, the firearm information was located on page 3. Why would the ATF move the firearm information and the personal information onto the same page?” MGN wrote and added: “To a thinking person, the answer is obvious—data collection. There is absolutely no way the ATF is not preparing for the eventual digitization of their systems and then a fight for a searchable database that they are prohibited by law from having. Furthermore, if one is familiar with how the Federal Government operates, the moves they make now are setting up the push five or even ten years down the road.”

A national gun registry is prohibited by federal law as well as at the state level in 8 states. The Supreme Court, in 1968, ruled that such registries are prohibited even for citizens who are deemed ineligible from owning guns, like felons, in its Haynes v. United States decision.

However, this ATF and Biden move has garnered little coverage from the mainstream media nor pushback from Republican politicians, those who claim to support the Second Amendment.

In fact, there has been plenty of bipartisanship to go around in recent years with both major parties supporting the anti-Second Amendment red flag gun control laws which allow the government to cease firearms based solely on allegations without any form of due process. Such laws are already in place in several states.

“Police officers in 20 states and the District of Columbia already have the authority to take away an individual’s Second Amendment rights based on allegations and without giving the individual due process,” wrote former Congressman Ron Paul. “These ‘Red Flag’ laws are supported by politicians of both parties, including some who claim to be pro-gun rights.”

Paul added: “For example, former President (Donald) Trump supported Red Flag laws. President Trump and Congressional Democrats were on the verge of reaching a ‘bipartisan’ deal to expand Red Flag laws in the fall of 2019. Fortunately, the Democrat attempt to impeach the President ended all efforts at ‘bipartisan’ deals to take away our rights.”

Robert Wheeler provided a myriad of gun control measures that have been introduced at the start of the current Congress.

Remember, first comes the gun registry and then comes the confiscation. As Audrey Kline detailed for the Mises Institute in a review of Stephen Halbrook’s book Gun Control in the Third Reich, the current actions of the federal government would make Nazi Germany proud.

“Halbrook concludes by noting that less government regulation and a tradition of rejecting tyranny could have led to a different outcome in Germany,” Kline wrote. “Instead, systematic creation and manipulation of firearms registration and regulations, coupled with the decimation of individual citizen’s rights, enabled Hitler’s dictatorship and the slaughter of millions of innocent Jews and citizens of Nazi-occupied countries, as well as tens of thousands of Germans. It remains for all of us to wonder what might have been had people refused to register their firearms. Indeed, we should all take note and never forget.”

Content syndicated from TheLibertyLoft.com with permission.