Legislation is still being introduced to curb the rights of responsible American citizens. As most of our readers know, so-called firearm safety legislation always amounts to infringement. One of the big things that stands between bad actors in the government and gun owner’s rights is the fact it is unlawful to have a federal gun registry. Prominent firearm attorney, author, and 2nd Amendment advocate Evan Nappen often quips:

Legislation, then registration. Then comes confiscation and after that extermination.  And those are the four words that all go together when dealing with gun registration.

Just because federal gun registrations are not legal does not mean that the anti-freedom caucus does not try to tap dance around this. On May 25, 2021 the Crime Gun Tracing Modernization Act  (S.1801) was reintroduced. Formerly, the bill was introduced in the last session of Congress, and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ-09) have brought it back. From a press release about the proposed legislation:

After a firearm associated with a crime is discovered somewhere in the United States, federal, state or local law enforcement officials contact ATF, which then must recreate the chain of custody of the firearm. But ATF is prohibited by law from electronically searching millions of gun sales records already in its possession. The absurd result is that ATF must comb through mountains of paper records manually, an extremely laborious process that delays timely investigations and drains law enforcement resources. Their legislation would update this process from the age of paper records to the age of electronic records, to enable electronic searching of these same records, aiding law enforcement authorities in catching criminals faster and potentially saving lives.

Let’s all relish in the fact that this is the same “absurd result” that did not stop the Secret Service from allegedly quickly finding the exact FFL that sold a firearm to Hunter Biden and then demanded the hard copies of the 4473 be turned over. This clearly shows that where there is a will, there is a way, and that pinpointing who bought a particular firearm may take a little police work, but is achievable. The way the system is right now, members of the executive branch have to actually work to trace firearms. The Crime Gun Tracing Modernization Act would make it “easier” to do so, but at the expense of gun owners’ privacy. Circling back to Nappen’s sage words, we are all right to be leery of any type of veiled scheme to make a registration. Supports of the bill might say otherwise:

The law would neither expand the universe of records the ATF is permitted to access, nor allow ATF to search for information it already has access to.  Importantly, the legislation will allow ATF searches for criminal and national security investigations only and for no other purpose.

This statement comes from the same camp that cannot keep track of deleted emails. With the quick click of a button, those records can be searched, and who’s to stop “them”? The real end game here is for when the time is right to strike, a change of the law or perhaps an illegal executive action comes into play, the registration is right there ready to go. This bill has a stink to it and people aught to know.

The irony of the release is they cite a New York Times “woe is me” article about how the big bad NRA is a bully to the innocent and meek ATF:

Earlier this month The New York Times highlighted this problem, which is centered within ATF’s National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Crippling restrictions on ATF have severely impeded its ability to efficiently inventory and quickly search the sales records of crime guns. The ever-growing collection of paper records at the National Tracing Center, which can be digitized but by law cannot be made electronically searchable, have become so voluminous that the floor has actually buckled under the weight of the paper records.

Leahy and Pascrell did not have the backing of the Times’ love letter to the ATF when they first introduced the bill in the former session, but had no issue leaning on the biased coverage towards the end of last month when the bill was introduced. Interestingly enough the piece was published on May 2, 2021 and the bill introduction occurred May 25th. I’d love to see if there was any correspondence between the NYTs and Leahy’s office on this subject. A more substantial look into the water works inducing missive was explored last month in “Let’s All Lament The Woes Of The ATF“.

Proponents of “modernizing” the records when it comes to firearm possession need to do a better job showing there is no malintent. The oft forgotten UN Small Arms Treaty is another elephant in the room, and the blue helmets would just love to be able to snatch up all the records of responsible gun owners in the United States. Sorry, but not sorry Senator. I’m going to have to look at this from a historical perspective: Legislation, registration, confiscation, and extermination.

The full text of the bill can be read HERE.