How President Trump Can Reverse Biden’s Backdoor Gun Registry

An under-the-radar regulatory change during the Biden years quietly expanded what amounts to a federal warehouse of private information tied to nearly every firearms transaction in America. Now, President Trump has the opportunity to reverse that rule — and put an end to yet another facet of the Biden administration’s assault on the Second Amendment and the privacy rights of law-abiding gun owners.

Any American citizen who has ever legally purchased a firearm has experience with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Form 4473. As a purchaser, you must fill out personal questions that are often confusingly worded (perhaps by government design) about your race, purchasing intent, drug use, citizenship, and so on. It is an eye-rolling and tedious process.

The rest of Form 4473 is completed by the Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder who is transferring the gun to you, the buyer. The FFL section includes information about the firearm being transferred, including manufacturer, model, and serial number.

Under federal law, FFLs must maintain these forms, which can be audited by the ATF at any time. Unsurprisingly, the ATF was astoundingly overzealous with these audits during the Biden administration – a dark era of aggressive government harassment that has been mercifully extinguished by President Trump.

While Form 4473 ostensibly exists to enhance public safety, there have long been concerns that this paperwork could be used as a shadow vehicle for gun registration schemes designed to infringe on the Second Amendment. This is simply because 4473 paperwork links gun buyer personal information with the specific firearm they are purchasing via an FFL.

This concern should be alleviated by the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA), which states that:

“No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established.”

It is for these legally binding reasons that firearms transaction records are maintained by the FFLs at the FFL’s place of business – and not in a government facility.

But the concerning catch is this: upon the termination of the FFL or the FFL going out of business, allof those transaction records – which connect personal information to firearm type – must be turned over to the ATF. In other words, it’s a loophole that allows the ATF to eventually collect massive amounts of personal information on gun owners.

The ATF has historically housed all of these paper records – tens and tens of millions of documents – at its National Tracing Center Out-of-Business Records Repository. In fact, the level of 4473 paperwork held now by ATF is staggering – nearly one billion individual records, according to recent Congressional findings.

The surface level justification for ATF maintenance of these records is to assist law enforcement in helping to solve crimes where guns were used. Records are supposed to only be searched following legitimate official law enforcement requests, and they are not supposed to be searchable by name. 

But given how much the federal government has recently overstepped its authorities – especially throughout the Biden years – how inclined are we to believe that ATF is performing all of its duties within its statutory limits? Even if it has followed the rules, why doesn’t the ATF answer repeated legitimate Congressional inquiries on relevant oversight issues? Congress has sent multiple letters to ATF seeking clarity and answers regarding what increasingly looks like an illegal registration scheme – and has been rebuffed thus far. What do they have to hide?

Until 2022, FFLs had the option to destroy 4473 forms if they were more than 20 years old. Defunct FFLs still had to submit their forms to the government, but this 20-year threshold allowed some degree of firearm owner privacy. It also relieved FFLs from having to keep storing stacks of old paperwork in their places of business. It was a win for both personal liberty and administrative practicality. 

But of course, the Biden administration warped long-standing good practice – which previous Republican and Democrat administrations didn’t seem to have a problem with for nearly 40 years – under Final Rule 2021R-05F. This rule, finalized in 2022, essentially ensured that all 4473 forms will eventually end up in the hands of the government, where they can be continually fed into a giant electronic database.

That is, unless the rule is changed back.

In addition to all of the positive things the Trump administration has done to protect and promote the importance of the Second Amendment, one additional thing that could be done – and that does not require Congressional legislation – is to restore the 20-year limit for FFLs to maintain their 4473 forms.

Due to things like the Administrative Procedure Act, it is often difficult to change regulatory rules. But there are ways it can be done in an expedited fashion, such as interim final rulemaking. It is good that Congress – and other voices – are starting to bring attention to these issues.

The Biden-era rule didn’t just tweak paperwork; it accelerated the quiet consolidation of sensitive gun-owner data into federal hands, testing the boundaries of both statute and public trust. President Trump now has the opportunity to draw a firm line, restore the 20-year limit, and halt the steady march toward what looks increasingly like a centralized registry. Rolling back 2021R-05F would send a clear message that constitutional rights cannot be eroded through regulatory sleight of hand.

Connor Martin is a U.S. Marine and covers national policy issues.