Joco Today

U.S. Senators Roger Marshall and Jim Risch, along with Congressman Michael Cloud, have introduced the No Retaining Every Gun In a System that Restricts Your (REGISTRY) Rights Act. This legislation aims to prevent the establishment of a federal firearms registry by the U.S. government.

The introduction of this act is supported by several Republican colleagues, including Senators Mike Crapo, Cynthia Lummis, Steve Daines, Pete Ricketts, Markwayne Mullin, Tim Sheehy, Cindy Hyde-Smith, and 47 members of the House of Representatives. The initiative has also garnered support from Gun Owners of America.

Under existing laws, Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) must transfer firearm transaction records to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) when their businesses close. These records are stored in the ATF’s Out-of-Business Records Imaging System which currently holds nearly one billion records. This system could potentially serve as a foundation for a federal firearms registry.

In April 2022, the Biden Administration issued a final rule requiring FFLs to indefinitely preserve all firearm transaction records. Previously since 1984, federal regulations allowed FFLs to discard records older than 20 years because the "time-to-crime"—the interval between a firearm's last known legal sale and its involvement in a crime—rarely exceeds two decades.