Representative Michael Cloud (R-Texas) sent President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance a letter on Tuesday telling them the ATF has firearms records it has no business having. "We write to alert you to an illegal national gun registry now containing 1,414,088,513 records of guns and gun owners," the letter begins. "Federal law forbids this. The Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986 prohibits 'any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions.'"

In addition to Cloud, 23 other House members signed the letter, dated September 29.

Last week, eight senators sent an identical missive to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.

The lawmakers are asking for an investigation into the ATF's database and for the "prompt and verifiable destruction of any records."

Massive Database

According to the letters, the "invasive database" has grown from about 920 million in 2021 to the 1.4 billion records today. The information is being held at the ATF's facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The records were "obtained from out-of-business firearms dealers and include names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and the specific firearms purchased."

Gun Owners of America (GOA) Federal Affairs Director Aidan Johnston called the existence of the database "truly shocking." He told Just the News, "No one in their right mind can look at ATF's digital, searchable 1.4 billion record database of firearm transactions and tell me that isn't a gun registry."

The ATF denies having a registry — it prefers the term "tracking system."

History of the ATF

Johnston pointed out that a major reason for the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA) in the first place was because the ATF was accused of similar chicanery back then. He told Just the News:

In 1986, Congress saw what ATF was doing in collecting these records, trying to enforce the Gun Control Act of 1968, and they said, "Hey we should really stop this agency from creating a gun registry."

FOPA amended the Gun Control Act in a number of ways. It narrowed the definition of "dealer," clarifying that someone who occasionally sells a weapon or trades with another person is not a firearms business dealer. It got rid of federal record-keeping for ammunition sales. And it banned a firearms registry and barred the federal government from keeping track of which owners have which firearms.