WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Representative Michael Cloud (R-Texas) introduced today the No Retaining Every Gun In a System that Restricts Your (REGISTRY) Rights Act. This legislation would prevent the U.S. government from creating a federal firearms registry.
“The ATF’s excessive overreach has gone unchecked for too long. Idaho’s law-abiding gun owners should not be subject to an already illegal federal firearms registry,” said Risch. “The Second Amendment is not conditional to a list of guns in circulation and their owners. All law-abiding Americans have the undeniable right to keep and bear arms. My No REGISTRY Rights Act will safeguard this essential liberty for generations to come.”
“Americans’ right to keep and bear arms is not subject to a government inventory. The Second Amendment is a cornerstone of individual liberty, and no administration—Republican or Democrat—should have the ability to compile a list of law-abiding gun owners,” said Cloud.“The Biden administration’s backdoor attempts to create a federal firearms registry are a clear threat to Americans’ privacy and constitutional freedoms. The No REGISTRY Rights Act will dismantle the ATF’s existing database and ensure such a registry can never be implemented.”
Risch and Cloud are joined by U.S. Senators Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and 47 members of the House of Representatives in introducing the No REGISTRY Rights Act.
The No REGISTRY Rights Act would:
- Require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to delete all existing firearm transaction records;
- Allow federal firearms licensees (FFLs) to destroy transaction records when they go out of business; and
- Prevent the ATF from creating or maintaining a firearms registry in the future.
Under current law, FFLs are required to transfer firearm transaction records to the ATF when the businesses close. These records are stored in the ATF’s Out-of-Business Records Imaging System, which now holds nearly one billion records. This database lays the groundwork for a federal firearms registry.
In April 2022, the Biden administration published a final rule demanding that FFLs preserve all firearm transaction records indefinitely. Since 1984, federal regulations have allowed FFLS to discard records older than 20 years, as the “time-to-crime”—the period between a firearm’s last known legal sale and its use in a crime—rarely exceeds two decades.
The No REGISTRY Rights Act is supported by Gun Owners of America.
