U.S Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-GA, was joined by 30 of his House Republican colleagues – including members of the Georgia delegation – in sending a letter Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Director Robert Cekada urging the agency to limit the retention of firearm records to 20 years and immediately destroy digitally recorded firearm registration records. Clyde and his colleagues say they are sounding the alarm on the staggering scale of the ATF's existing digitized records and the grave threat they pose to Americans’ Second Amendment liberties.
According to Clyde, the ATF issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) titled “Firearm Records Retention Periods” on May 6 that proposes that Form 4473s be retained for either 20 or 30 years by both federal firearms licensees (FFLs) and the ATF — meaning a firearm transaction record could be retained for up to 30 years by the selling FFL and an additional 30 years by the ATF after transfer to the National Tracing Center (NTC), for a potential maximum combined retention period of 60 years.
In response, the lawmakers urge Cekada to revise the agency’s proposed rule and destroy any digitized firearm transaction records.
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