The Final Rule published by the Biden administration to redefine frames and receivers contains a provision that requires firearm retailers to maintain records in perpetuity. It’s a requirement that doesn’t make sense since it doesn’t contribute to public safety and wastes tax dollars that could be better spent on stopping crime.
Congress has passed several laws, including the 1986 Firearm Owner Protection Act, to protect gun owners’ privacy by making it illegal for the federal government to maintain a registry of gun owners. The reasoning is simple. The government would be unable to confiscate personally-owned firearms if they don’t know who owns guns. History teaches us that national registration is a precursor to gun confiscation.
Currently, firearm retailers are required to maintain firearm transaction forms, commonly called Form 4473s, for 20 years. After that time, licensed retailers can purge these old records. If a firearm retailer goes out of business, all their business records, including Form 4473s, must be submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive’s (ATF) Out of Business Records (OBR) center at the National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W.V.
The president’s pending Final Rule on privately-made firearms (what anti-gun groups call “ghost guns”), has a section pertaining to record keeping – one that will require firearm retailers to maintain Form 4473s for the life of the business.
There are literally hundreds of millions of ancient, old business records housed at the ATF OBR Center. Several million records are added every month. There are so many records that structural building engineers told ATF they could not store any more records in building for fear the floors would collapse from the weight. Records are now stored in shipping containers in the parking lot.
NSSF maintains that firearm transfer records older than 20 years hold little actionable law enforcement information. Most firearms traced by law enforcement were lawfully sold after a background check nearly a decade before being traced by law enforcement. The ATF’s most recent data shows the average time-crime is seven years, in other years it has been about a decade. Records of law-abiding gun owners from 20 years ago aren’t a factor in these investigations. The resources spent to maintain these records would be better used in other enforcement activities. Congressional oversight is long overdue as to whether this is a good use of taxpayer money or whether those tax dollars would be better spent putting more agents in the field to stop crime before it happens.
The Biden administration sees things differently, however. This Final Rule would put the onus on firearm retailers to maintain decades-worth of records forever and be readily available for inspectors to access.
This dubious action by the Biden administration is hardly a surprise to the firearm industry. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris promised this to special-interest gun control donors during the campaign. President Biden campaigned for “zero tolerance” inspections that would revoke federal firearms licenses over simple clerical errors. That’s already happening. It is part of his larger promise to transform the ATF from a firearm industry regulatory bureau into one that punishes and shuts down businesses.
Lawrence G. Keane is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the NSSF, the firearm industry trade association.