ATF to Disregard Gun Owner Input on Illegal Registration Prevention

Time is running out! Click on the Take Action button and tell the ATF to remember its duty to the Constitution and United States Code prohibiting the creation of firearm or firearm owner registries! The comment period closes April 20, 2020.

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Personal and Gun Identification Info to be Consolidated on Form 4473, Easing Pathway to Registration

Dear John,

The ATF is proposing more revisions to the Form 4473—making your future firearm purchase and transfer information easier to retroactively compile into a gun or gun owner registry.

The revisions were first proposed on December 26th 2019 when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives announced in the Federal Register that it would be amending the Form 4473.

To be sure, this is an already unconstitutional form used to process NICS background checks before firearm purchases and some transfers.

Late December is reserved by the government for announcing sneaky, unconstitutional, and unpopular actions—like the Bump Stock Ban—while people are off work, at home, and spending time with their families for the holidays.

Disguised as mere compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the ATF’s proposed amendments to the Form 4473 will record gun owners’ personal information on the same page as the firearm make, model, and serial number.

Consolidating this information onto one page could pave the way for a future anti-gun administration or bureaucrat to more easily scan or photograph these forms, which are retained by the gun dealer for ten years, and create a de facto registry of firearm owners and their purchased firearms in violation of two provisions of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act.

In the past, GOA has received concerning allegations that ATF agents were copying Form 4473s at dealers places of business. Our concerns went inadequately answered.

Yet again, the ATF is furthering an anti-gun political agenda while they hope gun owners’ attention is elsewhere during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Hoping that the bureaucrats at the ATF were not ill-willed and would see the error of their ways, gun owners participated in the public process for the revision of forms and collection of information.

Unfortunately, the ATF decided to ignore gun owners’ concerns.

Now, a second and equally flawed draft has been proposed and gun owners have been given an additional opportunity to make public comment. We must remind the ATF of their duty to uphold the intent of the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act in prohibiting a firearm or gun owner registry with an additional 30-day comment period.

I urge you to take action and provide public comments to the ATF and ask them to protect gun owners’ private information. Please do so before the close of business on Monday, April 20.

In liberty,

Aidan Johnston
Director of Federal Affairs
Gun Owners of America

P.S. Please distribute this alert to your pro-gun family and friends and urge them to take action. To renew your GOA membership or to join for the first time, please click here.